"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
by Jorge Luis Borges
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"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
by Jorge Luis Borges
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are ...
Book by Anna Rosling Rönnlund, Hans Rosling, and Ola Rosling
I haven't posted in here for ages, I've been a bit shit on my reading over the last few months, here is what I've read this year
Zodiac - Robert Graysmith
In the Tall Grass - Stephen King & Joe Hill
Exorcist Road - Jonathan Janz
The Cabin At The End Of The World - aul Tremblay
Misery - Stephen King
The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
Reality Is Not What It Seems - carlo Rovelli
Dream Fall - Amy Plum
The Long Walk - Stephen King
The Prophet - Kahlil gibran
The Unfortunates - B.S. Johnson
Say You Love Satan - David St. Clair
The Bell Witch - Brent Monahan
Disappearance At Devils Rock - Paul Tremblay
Never Sleep Again - Thommy Hutson
Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Road Through The Wall - Shirley Jackson
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
The Death of Bunny Munro - Nick Cave
Brief Answers to the Big Questions - Stephen Hawking
Roadwork - Stephen King
The Killer Across The Table - John E Douglas
The Blooding - Joseph Wambaugh
N0S4R2 - Joe Hill
The Two Towers - J.R.R Tolkien
The Dark Half - Stephen King
The Search For The Green River Killer - Carton Smith
Reek - Bradley Freeman
The House Of The Brandersons - Raymon Rudorff
Call Waiting- R.L. Stine
The Satanic Bible - Anton Szandor LaVey
The Haunting Of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
I want to get another 8 books read between now and the new year so I need to get going on them
'Mindhunter' - John Douglas
This is about the start of the BAU and using psychology to nab serial killers. It's a cool book, very neat to hear about the quirks of serial killers and how those came to be, it's like a book filled with super villain origin stories. And yes the Netflix show of the same name is based off it.
John Douglas really deserves more recognition than what he gets, I mean aside from the book that he wrote in my list he also features in the one about the Zodiac, The Blooding (which was a case that happened in the UK and they still called him in) and the green river murders (which almost killed him)Quote:
Originally Posted by El Kabong
if it wasn't him then someone else would have come along and done it but you can't overlook what he did.
and for the record Mindhunter is fucking brilliant, the way they portray the killers is 9 times out of 10 absolutely spot on
Quote:
Originally Posted by BatmanJohn Douglas really deserves more recognition than what he gets, I mean aside from the book that he wrote in my list he also features in the one about the Zodiac, The Blooding (which was a case that happened in the UK and they still called him in) and the green river murders (which almost killed him)Quote:
Originally Posted by El Kabong
if it wasn't him then someone else would have come along and done it but you can't overlook what he did.
and for the record Mindhunter is fucking brilliant, the way they portray the killers is 9 times out of 10 absolutely spot on
Tell us how they got the other 1 wrong?
"The Library of Babel"
by Jorge Luis Borges
@Batman I was wondering what all you had read recently and you didn't disappoint. I guess I must have scrolled past on the phone and not seen that impressive list of books.
Right now I'm working on 'The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal' by Nick Bryant. This of course is at the heart of the 1980's "Satanic panic" and is often called a "conspiracy" but it was a HUGE case and captured headlines around the country. I had heard tell of it, but wanted a deep dive into what actually went on, what the facts of the case are/were if any. It's kind of difficult to keep up with all the names and how they are related to each other, but it's pretty fucking surprising the lack of information available on someone like Lawrence E. King Jr. considering just how big he was in Nebraska. I don't even know if Larry E. King is still alive, I know he got sent off to a mental institution then he got sent to prison for dirty deeds with the Credit Union he ran, but other than that he's a very difficult person to get information on and then when you couple that with the lead guy doing the digging on this case, Gary Cardoni, got into a plane crash and died....odd how that seems to happen so frequently to people who know certain things or people who are annoying certain people.
Anywho, I have found the book interesting so far, but again it's difficult to keep up with all the names involved. It would be better presented in a documentary format, but best of luck getting THAT done.
After that I'm thinking maybe Marcus Aurelius or Company Aytch, or something historical like that. I need to find an area I really want to dig into....perhaps I'll try 1776 by David McCullough
@El Kabong gotta be honest I'm pretty disappointed by my reading list, I've churned out enough books but I have struggled this year, I enjoy reading the classics and I feel like I've neglected them, I've found myself going for easy reads rather than the more challenging ones.
It isn't necessarily a bad thing because I'm a full on freak when it comes to horror whether it be film or book, I think I annoy people because if they ask me about a film I've recently seen I can't just say "its good" I go into the cinematography, the soundtrack, the tropes, I go full on Kermode, they have told me I should start a YouTube channel just reviewing shit about horror, I have to explain to them that in order to gather a following you would need a certain amount of charisma, that is something I severely lack, I don't like people at the best of times so the thought of talking to a camera to a load of faceless viewers makes me shudder.
but I digress.
I've just finished a book about Anneliese Michell, its a true account of the exorcism that eventually killed her (the film Exorcism of Emily Rose is based on it) and whilst it was an interesting read towards the final 1/2 of the book it got overwhelmingly biased and basically forced the opinion that she was actually possessed upon you, I would have preferred it if it kept a neutral point of view and allowed the reader to make their own minds up based on the facts that were available, I also know that it skirted over some issues that support the mental illness perspective in order to bolster its own agenda, all in all a good read and even though I already knew a lot about the case I've learned a lot more.
I'm currently reading Rage by Stephen King, the book has been out of print for the last 20 years or so, there are about 6 school shootings that have been linked back to that book so King himself asked them to let it run out of print, on Amazon the cheapest I've seen it is £400, anyways I found a dodgy kindle version of it for £3.80 so I was on it like a tramp on chips, the formatting goes a wee bit wrong every now and again but it is nothing noticeable at all, the book itself is a strange read, whilst Charlie Decker (off the top of my head I think that is his name, I've had a few Stellas so I could be wrong) comes across as a bit of an antihero but the other characters are just extremely blase, I think I'm about 20% through at the moment so I don't know how it will pan out but it certainly hasn't made me want to go and shoot up my workplace just yet.
also @El Kabong one of the books I read this year was based around the "Satanic Panic"
Say You Love Satan - David St. Clair
I've read a few books by the Author and I quite like what he does, he takes historical cases (usually about demonic possession) and writes it almost as if it is a story, whilst this one was an interesting case the execution was extremely poor, I was looking forward to the court/trial aspect of the book but it was extremely repetitive and all in all just a bit boring, the main thing that dragged the book down though was the dialogue, it was so fucking cringe inducing it was unreal
Funes, not FumesQuote:
Originally Posted by Fatboxingfan
Fumes is what Spicoli does
Well I looked up the book and yeah it had potential to be very intriguing. The book I'm on (The Franklin Scandal) has all of the trial aspects you'd ever want and there's another book by the same author Nick Bryant called 'Confessions of a DC Madam' which is supposed to uncover more about this child trafficking scandal that touched the Reagan White House by way of Craig J. Spence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Batman
Anyway this topic seems to always tantalize, you get bits and pieces of what you WANT to know about, the truth is very obscure, and what do you have to base your judgement on drug addicts? The seemingly mentally ill broken people who may or may not have had very horrible things happen to them.
You tell me about the child trafficking, about the sale or murder of children and big time celebrities, big time politicians, big time money involved and there's mysterious deaths like that of Gary Caradori and his son, the CIA is involved, police harassment, etc.....yeah that all piques the interest but you never ever pull the 1 thread that gets to the end of it all where one can say OH that's what was happening.
@Batman, really gotten in deep on the trial of Alisha Owen and at least as author Nick Bryant has relayed it was a complete and utter sham of a trial a legal disgrace and it was appalling how the prosecution and judge conducted themselves.
Alisha Owen's previous attorney was having an extramarital affair with an FBI Agent on the Owen case and Owen's new attorney bringing up that FACT drew 'objections' (naturally) but also the ire of the JUDGE which is mind boggling! Also added to that insult was the injury that Owen's prior attorney basically set her up for the FBI to either nail to the wall or intimidate her into silence. really nasty stuff.
Reading the classic Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Tom Sawyer' at present....part of me wished to read his autobiography, but that is a full fucking forest of paper. I could sink a battleship with volume one of that book!
I am also intrigued by J.D. Salinger's posthumous releases....ever read any Salinger @Batman? I watched a documentary on the guy, crazy brilliant fellow and deeply involved in the OSS. He took part of 'Catcher in the Rye' with him when he landed on D-Day.
Read House and Power of X comics which are about 12 issues interlinked and sets a whole new era of X-Men. Essentially Professor X has been shown that whatever he tries mutant-kind will always lose to mankind.
So Professor X starts a different and (to some people) extreme strategy to ensure mutant survival. He has developed flowers designed for various purposes such as extending the human lifespan, curing cancer and to live healthy lives. He offers these flowers to the world in exchange for recognition of a new sovereign nation of Mutants called Krakoa where "Man is not welcome."
He keeps other flowers that provides other powers such as providing a gate way to anywhere in the universe. He also is able to restore mutants who have died on missions he has sent them on.
The mutants have their own language, culture and socio/economic/political system and the artist has gone into great lengths to illustrate it.
I've only read Catcher in the Rye, I thought that was the only book he released.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Kabong
I didn't overly enjoy it to be honest, I think I was in my early 20s when I read it so I probably got there a little too late, I can certainly see why people in their mid teens would enjoy it, I've always meant to go back and re-read it but there is always something else I want to read just that little bit more.
Holden just came across as a whinging little twat, walking around calling everyone a phony, he was basically emo before it was known as emo.
Again though its been about 15 years since I've read it so I may look on it overly negatively.
Oh no Salinger has had other books, but 'Catcher in The Rye' is in/famous on account of being the "answer" as to why Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon, why John Hinkley Jr. shot Ronald Reagan, the book many a person were carrying (purposely or by chance) when they murdered another individual....now that doesn't mean it's any great shakes as a book on it's own, but apparently the premise of the book, the themes of it, speak quite clearly to certain people.Quote:
Originally Posted by BatmanI've only read Catcher in the Rye, I thought that was the only book he released.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Kabong
I didn't overly enjoy it to be honest, I think I was in my early 20s when I read it so I probably got there a little too late, I can certainly see why people in their mid teens would enjoy it, I've always meant to go back and re-read it but there is always something else I want to read just that little bit more.
Holden just came across as a whinging little twat, walking around calling everyone a phony, he was basically emo before it was known as emo.
Again though its been about 15 years since I've read it so I may look on it overly negatively.
Books by Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye (1951)
Nine Stories (1953)
"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (1948)
"Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" (1948)
"Just Before the War with the Eskimos" (1948)
"The Laughing Man" (1949)
"Down at the Dinghy" (1949)
"For Esmé—with Love and Squalor" (1950)
"Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" (1951)
"De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" (1952)
"Teddy" (1953)
Franny and Zooey (1961)
"Franny" (1955)
"Zooey" (1957)
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction (1963)
"Raise High the Roof-Beam, Carpenters" (1955)
"Seymour: An Introduction" (1959)
Three Early Stories (2014)
"The Young Folks" (1940)
"Go See Eddie" (1940)
"Once a Week Won't Kill You" (1944)
I've not read any Salinger but the documentary about the man was quite impressive and apparently he fell in love with some Nazi spy whilst he was working for the OSS.
I'm enjoying The Adventures of Tom Sawyer quite a bit. Twain is quite good about putting the reader in the mindset of a child.
Got an awesome early Christmas gift from an old friend, Harry Mullans Encyclopedia of boxing 8th and 9th edition and a copy of The Naked and The Dead by Norman Mailer. Stat-record books and piece articles not exactly a traditional 'read' but I forgot what a new book actually smells like :-X
Realm of Commonwealth
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FTEF...
Realm of Man
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jnVQ...
Re-reading Judaism Discovered by Michael Hoffman.
I have The Culture of Critique series by Kevin MacDonald in audiobook format so I am also restarting that again.
Re-reading? (: Got to top up that hate and rewash your brain huh? Why not give us the full title of holocaust denying Hoffmans trash?Quote:
Originally Posted by Alpha
I have finished Brett Anderson's 'Afternoons with the blinds drawn' which was excellent and honest. Brett Anderson has been a prat in his life, but I love how grown up he is these days. You can tell how clean he is by the way he looks. 52 years old and he looks amazing. I love his candor such as admitting that he is a simplistic musician and needs the technical brilliance of a Butler or an Oakes. Don't get me wrong, he is very talented in that his way with melody in the vocal line is tremendous. He has written many excellent songs, but he says he gets what people mean by that missing Suede chord. The little extra that a Butler or Oakes, can add with the dram and tension. I am so glad he made it through his addiction and became a stronger person.
Stick to books read @Beanz. What are you reading these days asides from The Canary?
Leviathan by Eric Jay Dolin, it's about whaling in the Americas. Been fairly interesting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalf
I started this thread ffs and so could certainly do without you demanding the right to censor what i choose to post in it. In fact all i was asking was that Alpha expand on what he had told us and give us the full title of what he is re-reading. Judaism Discovered by Michael Hoffman is a bit different when you self censor and leave out the actual full title which is Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit
This is a book in which Hoffman wants to normalize things like Holocaust denial and elevate Christianity to a point which delegitimizes Judaism. I get how appealing it is to hide from honesty for you guys, but the full title is kind of relevant here :-\ Good luck to you if you want to poison your mind re-reading a book that claims that Jews are a Satanic cult and that the Talmud is written by Satan then fill your boots, but don't hide the truth about an authors agenda in obfuscation You want the freedom to incite hatred then go join a Neo Nazi website and hang out with your racist Morrisey mates and Suede fans there.
The last four books i read were Stephen Fry's 'Mythos' which was a gift and terribly written but educational i guess ( Try Gaimans 'Norse Mythology' for an example of how to retell the classics).' The Cambridge dictionary of Philosophy' and David Olusoga's amazing 'Black and British: A Forgotten History' which I would urge anyone interested in British history to read if you want an example of a modern scholarly but readable masterpiece and Priya Hemenway's 'The Secret Code' all about the Golden Section which has often come up when I have been talking to people professionally about art.
I don't read the Canary and don't even read the Guardian much despite having family write for it. I used to read Unherd because it carries articles from people i respect like Roger Scruton, my friend Giles Fraser and even knobs you love like Douglas Murray, but it became an echo chamber for the perpetually offended new right so i no longer subscribe.
I appreciate the 3rd paragraph. Thank you. I find that kind of thing more interesting.
I am currently working through Kerouac and Bukowski. Seem to be into drunks at the moment.
What Alpha is into is his business IMO. I am going to re read a biography of Hitler soon, but please don't take it as a signing up act. 😤
Books I've read over the last few years
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Bukowski is greatQuote:
Originally Posted by Gandalf
Once you find the actual truth, the bread crumb trail of books to read, to follow, you are a researcher. I'd say it took me about 60 books to do this, before I started threading together the right books to read, 1 book leads into the next book and they all supplement each other in a synthesised whole. This is the true quest of the actual researcher, the man seeking the real historical truth, what actually happened, what actually is, objective truth, which is concrete and knowable. Something actually happened in the past, that past is called history and you have to thread these books together and connect the bread crumbs and synthesize it in your own consciousness and mind, that my friend is a researcher.Quote:
Originally Posted by BeanzRe-reading? (: Got to top up that hate and rewash your brain huh? Why not give us the full title of holocaust denying Hoffmans trash?Quote:
Originally Posted by Alpha
I read roughly 500 words per minute when concentrating. I would recommend Evelyn Wood’s 7-Day Speed Reading and Learning Program, How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and PhotoReading by Paul Scheele. These can be found for free online.
I have noticed that it's virtually impossible to in good taste "critique" Judaism which strikes me as a little odd...I mean I'm not dying to go after Jews and list of this whole big old pile of grievances against them, because I don't really have all that many. I mean I think it's odd that some of them have their own special police force in New York, I find that out of the ordinary. But hey I'm not going to delve into that because I already get called enough names and people already take me out of context and don't understand what I am asking about or questioning.
Anywho.... yeah my next book, I'm not so certain what that will be. Leviathan has been very informative thus far, but it started very slowly. Apparently the Dutch were master whalemen, but hey is that Anti-Dutch to notice? The English sucked at whaling and the early Americans were even better than the Dutch by the late 18th century. The figured out which whales had the most baleen and oil and they also ate whale meat which I can only assume tasted pretty fucking fishy due to their diets. The guys who hunted sperm whales had to have some fucking brass balls, they are a strong and fierce animal and also the artwork of their exploits is incredible, so much detail and action.
I would also recommend the following for any researcher:
The Controversy of Zionism by Douglas Reed.
Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes.
And although E. Michael Jones is a Catholic, his books are really good:
Libido Dominandi.
The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit.
The speed of my own reading depends on what I am reading. When reading an 800 page precise of 2000 years of British history,I had to slow down due to overwhelming data within. If you power read it I find something like that goes wrong. Too much dats. For an autobigraphy covering familiar material the speed goes up.
Even the British history book made my eyes open with how the Jews in Britain during the crusades would charge significant interest as the landed classes needed funding to fight for the Jewish 'homeland'. It didn't work well and those warriors came back furious at the debts and would sometimes hang Jews from trees. Even our old friend Jesus hated that kind of corruption, but he was more moderate than the Crusader types.
Welcome to Saddo book reviews, the dog whistling teenage safe fake rebels gateway for Stormfront.. (:
Check out some of those books I mentioned on increasing your reading speed. There are some really good techniques. A friend of mine reads around 8/9 hundred words a minute. But you are right about being familiar with the writing. Which is why I re-read things many times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalf
I only read 37 books last year, I'm extremely pissed off with myself because I set a target of 38 (I've read 40+ for the last few years)
This year I have set a target of 30, I think I'm struggling mentally with things I can't really describe which is keeping me from indulging in my reading, I dunno, I think that for the last 3 or 4 months I've been low key depressed for no reason, I just don't have any desire to engage my brain, I've been far happier spending countless hours watching youtubes recommended videos, fucking horrible headspace to be in, I'm trying to drag myself out of it though.
Bruh I don't read hardly as much as you. I have I guess "selection anxiety" I will think and think and think about what I would like to learn up on....I spend more time trying to select a book than I do reading the damned thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Batman
That is still very decent. Many don't read much at all. I guess I can do 3 in a month if it is relatively straightforward material, but if academic then I have to slow as the writer obviously wants to tie you in knots for kicks. All in all it evens out to about 30 a year and that is fine with me. It's not like being a kid and reading 1 a week with it being 150 page kids stories. I study a language too so there is only so much I can process in terms of time and information. Have to do other things whence giving up gaming and avoiding TV etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Batman
I just started reading 'Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr.' by Ron Chernaw it's about the baron of Standard Oil from birth to death. His father "Devil Bill" was a patent medicine flimflam man and at one point in time "Devil Bill" lived with his wife and housekeeper(his side piece) and he fathered 4 children between the two of them in a 2 year span :o
John D. was apparently a cool customer never really emotive, more of an automaton than a human but there was one person who could make him get his hackles up and that was muckraker IDA TARBELL
Just read 'War is a Racket' by General Smedley Butler it's more of a pamphlet than a book....decent read though, gives a real interesting perspective.
I am about to start Dark Trade by Donald McCrae. Some on here have praised it and it seems like a nicely written book in terms of journalistic breeziness from my brief glances so far. Plus I love boxing, so it is a win win. Should keep me busy on these completely non winter like evenings.