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General discussionWhat are you Reading?(4152 posts)(4152 posts)
(4152 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 09, 2012
Currently the Penguin edition of "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio"--a selection, unfortunately, rather then a complete translation. Most stories are quite brief. Some great stuff, some weird stuff (my current favorite: assassinating a bothersome official by convincing a gay fox spirit to seduce him, then suck out his life energy). I already read Journey to the West and Water Margin, but couldn't keep track of the characters in Three Kingdoms and ended up drifting away from it*, so this is serving as a gentle reintroduction to Chinese literature before I give that one another go.

*I couldn't really keep track of the 100+ outlaws in Water Margin, of course, but so few of them really seemed to matter that it didn't keep me from finishing the thing.
Post edited October 09, 2012 by BadDecissions
Posted October 09, 2012
Finishing up on "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian", getting ready for "The Bloody Crown of Conan". Yum!
[and yeah, i'm taking my sweet time with it...]
Post edited October 09, 2012 by Arteveld
Posted October 09, 2012
"Kill the Dead" - Richard Kadrey
"House of Fear" - a short story collection about haunted houses
"The Weird" - a huge collection of stories from 1906 - 2010
"The Watchers" - Jon Steele
Posted October 09, 2012
The Romance of Lust.
Posted October 10, 2012
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AlKim: I finished This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong. For those who don't know, Spiders is the sequel to John Dies at The End, a book that began as a short story on the Internet. The humble origins, and the writer being a Cracked.com writer, meant that the narration was a bit goofy at times, but I found myself forgiving the book its shortcomings and stayed up late at night just to find out what would happen next. If that's not a sign of a captivating book, I don't know what is. It also had the curious ability to be philosophical and somewhat creepy at moments and hilarious the next. It's not subtle most of the time, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, and sometimes things get pulled right out of the author's ass, but you know what? I don't care. As a form of mindfuckery, it works. It took me two days to read Spiders, all 485 pages of it, so it's business as usual in the page-turner department. It also contains several moments of horror, philosophy, comedy and completely random things happening (let's face it, it's not like Stephen King expains how magic and alien technology are possible, so it's still okay), but a part of the prequel's charm is missing. It's nothing I can put my finger on, but as a wild guess I'd say Spiders is a bit too focused for its own good; it takes itself too seriously. Maybe it's the "I've seen something like this before". On the whole though, it's probably the better of the two books, but I'll withhold judgment until I've given both novels a re-read and some time for them to sink in. EDIT: Grammar/typo fix.
Damn. I'd love to read these but my stupid library system doesn't have them.
Posted October 10, 2012
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AlKim: I finished This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It by David Wong. For those who don't know, Spiders is the sequel to John Dies at The End, a book that began as a short story on the Internet. The humble origins, and the writer being a Cracked.com writer, meant that the narration was a bit goofy at times, but I found myself forgiving the book its shortcomings and stayed up late at night just to find out what would happen next. If that's not a sign of a captivating book, I don't know what is. It also had the curious ability to be philosophical and somewhat creepy at moments and hilarious the next. It's not subtle most of the time, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Oh, and sometimes things get pulled right out of the author's ass, but you know what? I don't care. As a form of mindfuckery, it works. It took me two days to read Spiders, all 485 pages of it, so it's business as usual in the page-turner department. It also contains several moments of horror, philosophy, comedy and completely random things happening (let's face it, it's not like Stephen King expains how magic and alien technology are possible, so it's still okay), but a part of the prequel's charm is missing. It's nothing I can put my finger on, but as a wild guess I'd say Spiders is a bit too focused for its own good; it takes itself too seriously. Maybe it's the "I've seen something like this before". On the whole though, it's probably the better of the two books, but I'll withhold judgment until I've given both novels a re-read and some time for them to sink in. EDIT: Grammar/typo fix.
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DieRuhe: Damn. I'd love to read these but my stupid library system doesn't have them.
Better the US than Singapore. The library here doesn't have jack shit. I always have to recommend them new titles.
Posted October 10, 2012
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DieRuhe: Damn. I'd love to read these but my stupid library system doesn't have them.
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lowyhong: Better the US than Singapore. The library here doesn't have jack shit. I always have to recommend them new titles.
Yeah, maybe I should make them a list. All those libraries and not one copy! And I can't afford to buy books so major suckage.
Posted October 10, 2012
White Spaces in Czech History 1

I've finished Scott Pilgrim yesterday.

And Dishonoured people: About Millers, hangmans and social workeresses
Post edited October 10, 2012 by Bodkin
Posted October 10, 2012
Currently reading a book by Neal Stephenson called Reamde, its about a MMO developer, the MMO is designed to be RMT friendly, but some gold farmers design a virus called Reamde, when people open it, it encrypts all their files and they have to pay a "ransom" with ingame gold.

Unfortunately the files of one victim, belong to the russian mafia, thus begins a globetrotting tale that takes you from the US, to canada, to china the phillipines and even into the gameworld itself, and involves the russian mafia, CIA, FBI, and even an islamic jihadist group along the way.

A great story, well told, runs to 1000+ pages off the top of my head.

http://www.nealstephenson.com/reamde/
Posted October 10, 2012
The Sound and the Fury by William "the more periods I use the more it hurts" Faulkner

Yeah, being a pretentious fuck, I read this sort of stuff for fun. Judge away. I really REALLY loved Absalom Absalom and the few short stories of his that I've read, but The Sound and The Fury isn't doing it for me. It's still got a little of the Faulkner magic, and I'm sure it's loaded with all sorts of hidden mystical symbolism that I don't understand because I'm not an enlightened academic or whatever... but I feel it goes a little too far in the incomprehensible direction. For the first two parts, at least. Sometimes it goes on for pages and pages without you having any idea what or who is being talked about, or even whether you're reading present happenings, memories, or just random thoughts. At least it's starting to make more sense toward the end, and is consequentially becoming more interesting.
Posted October 10, 2012
Different short stories by Jack London.

Great stuff. He certainly seemed to be familiar with hardship and the irony of life.
Post edited October 10, 2012 by Primate
Posted October 10, 2012
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F1ach: Currently reading a book by Neal Stephenson called Reamde...
I haven't picked this one up yet. I assume you've read other Neal Stephenson books though? If so, how would you say this one stacks up? I plan on eventually picking it up anyway, as I love his writing, but just curious how you'd compare it to his other stuff.
Posted October 10, 2012
I haven't read anything else yet, I just saw it in the book shop and it looked interesting, I like a nice meaty read, so it's bulk is what attracted me to it lol :)
Posted October 10, 2012
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

No, I'm not kidding. I'm on book 5 now and I find it to be very enjoyable stuff to read so far. It's really fascinating and I can identified with some of the people, which is remarkable.
Posted October 10, 2012
I'm currently reading through the collections of Philip K Dick's short stories.
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussionWhat are you Reading?(4152 posts)(4152 posts)
(4152 posts)