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Grand unified books thread

Started by Syt, March 16, 2009, 01:52:42 AM

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FunkMonk

Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2009, 04:53:42 PM
I'm just disappointed that hardly anyone here (maybe except the gays, Savonarola, Brazen and Malthus) seems to be reading fiction anymore. History books are all fine and dandy, but they are (with some notable exceptions) all about information, rather than literary skills.
I get enjoyment out of both fiction and non-fiction, but when walking through a bookstore fiction doesn't attract my eye as much as the other.

I read McCarthy's The Road late last year and absolutely loved it, but I haven't any fiction since.
Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

Martinus

Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 22, 2009, 05:07:18 PM
I read fiction, though I don't have much time to do so anymore. If I have time to read I'm usually reading history in order to prep myself for the next era we're going to go over in class.
So you are just one chapter ahead of your class? :D

Ed Anger

Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

jimmy olsen

Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2009, 05:17:57 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 22, 2009, 05:07:18 PM
I read fiction, though I don't have much time to do so anymore. If I have time to read I'm usually reading history in order to prep myself for the next era we're going to go over in class.
So you are just one chapter ahead of your class? :D

I'm not reading their text book, I could do that in 5 minutes. I'm reading scholarly works on the subject. I've read at least 4 books on the Civil War in the last two weeks.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

garbon

#49
Bought Cammy P's Vamps & Tramps.

One of the first lines in the first chapter:

"The penis. Should we keep it? Or should we cut it off and throw it away?."

:diaryfactory:
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Queequeg

Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2009, 04:53:42 PM
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 22, 2009, 04:49:42 PM
Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2009, 04:32:39 PM
It's funny how you guys ridicule me for liking "gay books" whereas all you read apparently are books about some obscure wars.  :D

Books about Frederick are gay books about obscure wars.  How bout them apples.
I'm just disappointed that hardly anyone here (maybe except the gays, Savonarola, Brazen and Malthus) seems to be reading fiction anymore. History books are all fine and dandy, but they are (with some notable exceptions) all about information, rather than literary skills.
Seems more like you are consciously ignoring certain posters.  Besides, this is still a child of Paradox, you'd expect history nuts.
Quote from: PDH on April 25, 2009, 05:58:55 PM
"Dysthymia?  Did they get some student from the University of Chicago with a hard-on for ancient Bactrian cities to name this?  I feel cheated."

Kleves

I just finished Fred Anderson's Crucible of War about the French and Indian War. I thought it was excellent.
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Sheilbh

Quote from: Martinus on March 22, 2009, 03:00:22 PM
Update: Finished The Swimming Pool Library, one of the most gripping, wonderfully and richly written modern books I have read in years. Thanks for an amazing recommendation, guys. I really enjoyed that one - now can't wait to get my hands on Alan Hollinghurst's other books (which, I am led to believe, have received an even greater critical applause than his debut). Delicious.

The Folding Star and The Line of Beauty are excellent.  The Spell isn't.

I don't have an issue with gay books, so long as they're well-written and I think Hollinghurst's one of the best prose authors around. 

The best comparison I can think of is someone like V.S. Naipaul.  He's very 19th century in my opinion.

Edit:  And I'm halfway through Dubliners.  So far there's some incredibly poignant stories here, whcih surprises me.
Let's bomb Russia!

Martinus

#53
I'm reading Berek ("The Game of Tag") by Marcin Szczygielski, a Polish author. The protagonist seems to frequent the same club in Warsaw that I do every Friday, and he seems to be having the same tendecy to fall in love with the wrong kind of men (with his latest 'He-must-be-The One'-who-didn't-call-after-a-one-night-stand having actually the same name as my "failed bf"). I feel bizarre.

Especially as I have already invited my mum to a play based on the book (before I read it).

AnchorClanker

Marty,

I think you are purposefully ignoring that a good many historians are talented writers.  :(
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.  - Reinhold Niebuhr

Martinus

Quote from: AnchorClanker on March 24, 2009, 04:14:14 PM
Marty,

I think you are purposefully ignoring that a good many historians are talented writers.  :(
I do not deny you are right. I just find fiction more entertaining, despite (or indeed, due to) its frequent incongruence and emotional appeal, whereas any writing, however good, of a non-fiction author (be it a historian or otherwise) always must follow the cold iron logic of facts and is judged from that perspective first and foremost. When art takes the back seat to science, it always suffers, so I prefer to separate the two. Reality is tedious. ;)

AnchorClanker

History, well written, can and will equal fiction in elegance and depth of human emotion.
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.  - Reinhold Niebuhr

FunkMonk

Quote from: AnchorClanker on March 25, 2009, 01:43:36 PM
History, well written, can and will equal fiction in elegance and depth of human emotion.
Gibbon comes to mind.
Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

FunkMonk

Reading All Quiet on the Western Front again for my Ethics class. Also I've read through some of the beginning of The Third Reich at War.
Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.

Valmy

Quote from: Martinus on March 24, 2009, 04:52:19 PM
I do not deny you are right. I just find fiction more entertaining, despite (or indeed, due to) its frequent incongruence and emotional appeal, whereas any writing, however good, of a non-fiction author (be it a historian or otherwise) always must follow the cold iron logic of facts and is judged from that perspective first and foremost. When art takes the back seat to science, it always suffers, so I prefer to separate the two. Reality is tedious. ;)

Nonsense.  Fiction is much more predictable and more tedious than history.  The facts of history are very rarely logical.  I mean the King of France giving his army over to a teenage girl?  WTF?
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."