Just completed my reading of Dante's Purgatorio along with lectures and notes. Next stop--Paradisio!
Just completed my reading of Dante's Purgatorio along with lectures and notes. Next stop--Paradisio!
"Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers--for a little background while watching True Detective, season 1.
"Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine
VO - did you find it helped with True Detective much ?
I liked the first story the best...."The Repairer of Reputations"
Finally finished Eldritch Chrome. A collection of cyberpunk Cthulhu short stories.
Now on to Figure in the Carpet by Henry James.
sinistral hypergraphica - a slurry of ink
"Nothing means less than zero"
Bogon07 (June 9th, 2015)
Finished 'Figure in the Carpet' by Henry James. A black Penguin mini classic - only 55 pages.
Fascinating read about obsession & book reviewers.
The next book on the reading list is:
sinistral hypergraphica - a slurry of ink
"Nothing means less than zero"
Arheled by James Farrell. First in a series of six (?) books with an apocalyptic theme set in Winsted, CT by a local author. Discovered while investigating a funeral home for sale in Winsted....
"Nolo esse salus sine vobis ...” —St. Augustine
Money: A Suicide Note by Martin Amis
Actually, it was a re-read (third time).
_____________
To Miasto
In the past week and a half:
Hemingway:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Farewell to Arms
Orwell
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
I'm also working through JND Kelly's Early Christian Doctrines
Tender is the Night
F Scott Fitzgerald
I struggled with the writing style at first but in the end I settled in to it and I'm glad I read it.
There are some beautiful and brilliant phrases in that book. Trying to copy them out on the bus was too difficult so I resorted to post it note markers and then copying them out at home.
Just finished Space Viking by H Beam Piper as well.
The Warden by Anthony Trollope.
I was surprised by how short this book was. It was a 'so so' book for me (like the Curate's egg - good in parts).
Just finished Engaging the Boss by Noelle Adams, then Soul Meaning by A.D. Starrling, followed by the last half of The Ghost and the Graveyard this weekend. (I read entirely too fast...)
The first is a romantic fluff book, and was about as good as expected. Cutesy without any meat!
The second was an interesting read if you're into the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal sort of book. There was an element of Agent Badass, but that's become more popular in the Urban Fantasy real thanks to the popularity of the Anita Blake books by Laurell K. Hamilton.
The third was another fluff book, but more along the lines of Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance.
And starting the Post-Human Series by David Simpson... maybe.
naimitsu (June 23rd, 2015)
The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl
"The Little Sleep" by Paul Tremblay. I thought it was a surprisingly good book.
I finished Mabie in America by David L. Moak. Interesting history (for me) and very good illustrations. I guess I like boring books. Now if there were a British book that continues the history....
We have met the enemy and he is us.
-Pogo
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton: "Growing older does not seem to make you more certain, Nella thinks. It simply presents you with more reasons for doubt."
Lady Onogaro
"Be yourself--everybody else is already taken." --Oscar Wilde
I very much enjoyed The Buried Giant from Kazuo Ishiguro. That one got terrible reviews, I suspect because it's so slow moving and doesn't fit the trend of either critically acclaimed or popular novels these days. I closed the book, however, thinking they'll be reading him in 100 years.
I'm on Part 2 Chapter 8 or 9 of Post-Human and it's interesting at the very least.
The writing style feels a bit like H.G. Wells to me. Very blunt, a bit stunted, and somewhat forced... at least that's the feel of The Time Machine when I tried to read it a number of years ago. The style and my brain didn't mesh well.
As for Post-Human, it feels like it is pushing at me, if that makes any sense. The development of the characters and the storyline lacks the organic quality that I tend to like. It's like watching a marionette getting tossed about the stage with no concept of how it should move to properly mimic human motion.
The book will at least get finished as I am curious to see how the author's technology theories progress, and to see if he does come up with anything truly new or unique.
He seems to think that most of his ideas are rather novel (pun somewhat intended), but I have read at least one series of books where the first book was published 4 years prior to his own that contains the basis for the Post-Human state in his book. I get the feeling that his genre pool is much shallower than my own based on his assertion in his Reading Order forward that we need an updated idea of science fiction. If he had spent any time in the Urban Fantasy realm, he would quickly see how far the ideas for science fiction have come.
On a somewhat related note, I had the same contrived feeling with the second book in the Ender Quintet. I have yet to finish that book and I started it a few months ago. We shall see if it ever gets finished...
carlc (June 29th, 2015)
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