The Books thread.

rabidpeanut · Post by **rabidpeanut** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:25 pm

The name makes me think: USA.

edit: i only clicked the link AFTER i posted.

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:02 am

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 5:27 am

currently reading:
Guns, Germs & Steel - Jared Diamond. kind of amazing actually. i was expecting this to read a bit like some first year liberal arts student rant (richard dawkins style) but there's some fuckin DEEP analysis going on here son, it's like an anthropology, history, evolutionary biology & microbiology textbook rolled into one intensely readable... thing.

read in the past little while:
JM Coetzee - Life & Times of Michael K
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (fantastic)
JD Salinger - Nine Stories

hello dac!

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 6:40 am

atoga wrote:currently reading:
Guns, Germs & Steel - Jared Diamond. kind of amazing actually. i was expecting this to read a bit like some first year liberal arts student rant (richard dawkins style) but there's some fuckin DEEP analysis going on here son, it's like an anthropology, history, evolutionary biology & microbiology textbook rolled into one intensely readable... thing.
...

hello dac!

That's next after I finish Shadows Of Forgotten Ancestors.

It's better than the excerpt.

PiP · Post by **PiP** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:51 am

Redeye wrote:The Devil's Dictionary, online

I was once given a hardcopy of this - thought it's quite boring, 'coz when would you actually go and read an entry?

Redeye · Post by **Redeye** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:34 pm

PiP wrote:
Redeye wrote:The Devil's Dictionary, online
I was once given a hardcopy of this - thought it's quite boring, 'coz when would you actually go and read an entry?

When it was written it must have been deliciously cynical.

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:52 pm

Nicolai wrote:Here's the current stack

we must never forget the man who was guy sajer

Nicolai · Post by **Nicolai** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 1:46 pm

Quite so, quite so.

UncleGore · Post by **UncleGore** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 6:59 pm

any of you teetotalling troglodytes read any of the
BOLO series?

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Tue Nov 25, 2008 7:22 pm

I like this Bolo better.

UncleGore · Post by **UncleGore** » Thu Nov 27, 2008 1:23 am

S4ur0n27 wrote:I like this Bolo better.

jewmonger

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:24 pm

Just finished McCarthy's The Road. I rarely read modern litterature, but this is a must. I started it this morning and read it in one shot. Amazing.

Post by **Dogmeatlives** » Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:46 pm

S4ur0n27 wrote:Just finished McCarthy's The Road. I rarely read modern litterature, but this is a must. I started it this morning and read it in one shot. Amazing.

yeah great story. I'm working on Suttree now and have to say it feels a bit bloated. Descriptions go on too long for my attention span/intellect, while nothing of much excitement seems to happen thus far.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Sun Dec 28, 2008 10:53 pm

Reading Suttree's synopsis, it certainly sounds like it's gonna be McCarthy's most boring book.

cazsim83 · Post by **cazsim83** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 8:36 am

just finished Middlesex - pulitzer prize winner - pretty good for a story about a hermaphrodite - unfortunately oprah recommended it - i found this out after i had read it - i generally try to stay away from shit she promotes, but since i dont' watch oprah, i usually don't find out until i bring it up in conversation with one of the mindless masses who watch her god awful shitfest of a show.

Frater Perdurabo · Post by **Frater Perdurabo** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 2:48 pm

I've recently been reading books on neuro linguistic programming. Very interesting stuff and has definately had an impact on me as a character.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:03 pm

I read my first Sartre today : L'existentialisme est un humanisme. Not bad, and certainly makes me want to read more, I think I'll try one of his novels, probably La NausÃ©e.

Post by **Dogmeatlives** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 9:37 pm

S4ur0n27 wrote:Reading Suttree's synopsis, it certainly sounds like it's gonna be McCarthy's most boring book.

It's kinda just about a deadbeat aimlessly wandering around and getting into trouble. He goes fishing alot too. I've read Blood M., the Road, Child of /God, and that Horse book that Matt Damon starred in. Suttree definitely beats the first three for boredom, but with my broken computer its the only audiobook i have.

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 10:13 pm

S4ur0n27 wrote:Just finished McCarthy's The Road. I rarely read modern litterature, but this is a must. I started it this morning and read it in one shot. Amazing.

i thought it was pretty overrated, but a necessary read so people will stop telling me "you must read it." i realize there is supposed to be the chill of despair cast over all things, but the relationship of the son and the father lacked even the slightest warmth and it was really offputting for me

right now im reading and translating cicero's speeches delivered in the senate against catiline. i like to juxtapose them into modern american politics.

please forgive me if my prose is not as pleasing as the original, i try to maintain as much charm in my translation as exists in the latin:

do you not see that knowledge of your conspiracy is held by all these men? what you did this past night and the one before? where you were, who you met, what council you took? who of us do you imagine is ignorant? what times, what morals! the senate knows, the consul sees; yet he lives. he lives? in fact, even now he comes to the senate, shares in the plans of the people and picks out and marks with his gaze every one of us for the slaughter. but we, sufficiently brave men, shall appear to do our duty if we avoid his madness and his weapons both. the order of the consul should long ago have led you to your own death, catiline.

S4ur0n27 · Post by **S4ur0n27** » Tue Dec 30, 2008 11:37 pm

In high school I've found out latin is hardly translatable; well it is, but it always loses something. Though it must not be the only language that suffers from a translation, I think it's worse then say english to french or vice versa.

Most of the time, when I compared the latin version and the french one, I always liked the latin one better even though I was never good enough in latin to understand it as much as french or english.