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The Koran is interesting,but i can only read snipets then get disheartened same with the bible ,both contradict themselves; If you cant separate the time zones when stuff was written and get the context of the dreamtime and massive animals flying around etc from the stuff from the historic points, or if you read them as a what to do manual they come off as rather insane. But the world was very different once and so were we in our approach to everything,its an interesting glimpse into it.
In The Ring With James J. Jeffries by Adam Pollack!
I have finished Updike now and am back to Haruki Murakami. I am reading IQ84 book one and two. ( I have just noticed on searching for images there is now also a book three too.)
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It is nice and relaxing as my day job is currently stretching my brain enough and I am finding many stories within the stories that I can relate to from my own personal life growing up.
100 Year of Texas Waterfowl Hunting. Good history and lots of family mentioned.
I am currently reading - Understanding Exposure a photography guide by Bryan Peterson and The Radical God - Social and Political Justice - The Legacy of the Hebrew Prophets by my Dad ;D It challenges the views of both religious fundamentalists and secular atheists and suggest that Democracy is the result not of Greek Reason but Hebrew Poetry and that these same prophets laid the basis of Western Democracy and Human Rights. As both a social anthropologist and a political activist and Sufi teacher his view is certainly a unique one and his cross referencing and research blows my mind. The notes and references, Appendix and bibliography are extensive and eye opening.
You read this one? Whats it like? Has it exercises or meditations?Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenbeanz
Sufi Therapy of the Heart:
I will PM you mateQuote:
Originally Posted by AndreYou read this one? Whats it like? Has it exercises or meditations?Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenbeanz
Sufi Therapy of the Heart:
I am currently reading Infinity which is Marvel Comics about Thanos trying to take over the world and the Avengers are fighting him. It is more complicated than that but it would take me ages to explain it and I prefer to spend the time to look at the pictures. :)
So the premise of this thread is for there to be a wide variety of literature discussed much like films are discussed in the 'Last movie you watched' thread.
I have read quite a few books, fiction and non-fiction and have enjoyed both immensely. I will attempt to recall previous books and list them, their pros and cons here on this thread. Likewise I will address authors which I have read and either enjoyed or disliked and I encourage my fellow forum members to do the same.
The book which I am currently reading has led me to start this thread (of course after searching for a previously made thread about books, reading, etc and seeing none I made this). The book is 'Scouting on Two Continents' by Major Frederick Russell Burnham. Burnham was a contemporary of Robert Baden-Powell who started the Boy Scouts Association which has contributed dare I say to the childhood and young adulthood of many a man and perhaps many a forum member. Burnham was born in 1861 to a family of settlers in Minnesota and his life was never dull, so far I have read of Indian attacks, stolen horses from famous banditos, partnering up with a smuggler, learning the art of being a true "scout", the Tonto Basin feud in Arizona, and various exploits in mining and hunting for miners all of which have been fascinating and I am only 4 chapters in. The reading has been smooth and just as exciting as fiction.....speaking of which Major Burnham was the inspiration of H. Rider Haggard's hero Allan Quartermain due to his exploits in the American West and in the Boer Wars. Major Burnham also was quite friendly with Teddy Roosevelt who quite admired his stories which really is something considering Teddy once rode the back of a bull moose across a river for fun.
Anyway, what stories have you read, what authors do you like, which books do you think we would enjoy?
My favorite author id an Argentinian Jew named JORGE LUIS BORGES. his stories are short and mind blowing. Read him extensively at university, still do.
Try reading The Garden of Forking Paths, a mere 7 pages long, and staggering.
I was thinking about starting a thread for books just the other day.
I've read a fair few books over the last few weeks, I'll get on goodreads.com to refresh myself and then report back with my ratings
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is also a mind blower.
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BirdBox by Josh Mallerman
Strange book, creatures that turn you insane and cause you to kill yourself and others if you so much as see them, causes the whole population to live in a self imposed blindness, bog standard horror book, finished it in 1 day but it was enjoyable
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The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell
The Exorcist before The exorcist, released about 10 years before, decent book, the whole 'possession' thing was far too easily believed by the priests but it was a nice simple read, extremely tame when compared with the all time classic that came after
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Knock-Em-Stiff by Donald Ray Pollock
collection of 18 short stories all based in an extremely town, don't go expecting any happy endings, it is child abuse, alcoholism, rape and general depression, I loved it, my kind of book
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City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin
the last of the passage trilogy, an uptodate vampire story (not your gay Twilight shite here) fucking awesome trilogy, this book started off slow but the second half of it was unputdownable, brilliant
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The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
the most frightening thing about this is that its based on a true story, a girl gets kidnapped and brutally and systamatically tortured by 1 deranged mother and every kid in the local area, fucking terrible book, again my kind of thing, loved it but I'd be careful who I recommended it to.
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The Trial by Kafka
an old classic, some dude gets put on trial and has no idea why, will he every manage to find out what is going on? good book well worth a read, the long paragraphs and narrative can bog you down but its only 200 pages
those are some the books that I've read over the last month two anyway
Knock em stiff would be my kind of book about rape! And Kafka a distant second!!!
BbbbwaaaAAAAAHHAHAHAAAA!!!!!
My apologies, I'll let a mod know and merge the threadsQuote:
Originally Posted by Greenbeanz
Holy shit!!! It happened.to both of us!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by El KabongMy apologies, I'll let a mod know and merge the threadsQuote:
Originally Posted by Greenbeanz
I certainly didn't mean for it to...I vaguely remembered a book/author thread but couldn't fucking find it....anywho, here's hoping that we'll get the threads merged and everyone will give their input and keep that thread at the top of this part of the forum.Quote:
Originally Posted by brocktonblockbustHoly shit!!! It happened.to both of us!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by El KabongMy apologies, I'll let a mod know and merge the threadsQuote:
Originally Posted by Greenbeanz
Much appreciated my Mod friends!
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I'm currently reading this at the moment, I only started it the other day and whilst its good I'm struggling to get into it, I like the writing style but I'm just waiting for it to kick off a little bit and get going.Quote:
In 1897, an aspiring politician is mysteriously murdered in the rural area of Alabama known as Mitcham Beat. His outraged friends -- mostly poor cotton farmers -- form a secret society, Hell-at-the-Breech, to punish the townspeople they believe responsible. The hooded members wage a bloody year-long campaign of terror that culminates in a massacre where the innocent suffer alongside the guilty. Caught in the maelstrom of the Mitcham war are four people: the aging sheriff sympathetic to both sides; the widowed midwife who delivered nearly every member of Hell-at-the-Breech; a ruthless detective who wages his own war against the gang; and a young store clerk who harbors a terrible secret.
Based on incidents that occurred a few miles from the author's childhood home, Hell at the Breech chronicles the events of dark days that led the people involved to discover their capacity for good, evil, or for both.
I read one of Tom Franklins other books (Smonk) and that was just a crazy clusterfuck of violence and crazy characters that wasn't very good, that was why I thought I'd give this book a go because he seems like he could be a real good author, I'll let you all know what I think of it in the end
Wow, looks like you stumbled on a bit of American history that I didn't even know about. I may have to take a look at that one myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Batman
To be honest I love westerns and anything set in the deep south, I've read a few books like this one, I find that I end up burning myself out after a while if I stick with them for too longQuote:
Originally Posted by El KabongWow, looks like you stumbled on a bit of American history that I didn't even know about. I may have to take a look at that one myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Batman
for example whilst this book was fucking brilliant it was a proper slog to get through
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Quote:
The lore and the legends, the lawmen and the bad men, the rise of the cattle barons and the tragic demise of the Plains Indians, the pioneers and the forty-niners, Little Big Horn and the Alamo, Calamity Jane and Crazy Horse -- from the Alleghenies to the Rockies the events that shaped the West and the people who tamed it are featured in this vivid anecdotal history, which draws upon firsthand testimony and contemporary documents to provide a compelling and comprehensive account of a land as it became a nation.
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The Universe doesn't give a flying fuck about you
J. Truant.
Very short book, I read it twice a year for motivation.
Still reading African Origin of Civilization by Sheikh Anta Diop.
If that is what you enjoy then you would absolutely love 'Scouting on Two Continents'....just got through a part where Major Burnham (then a young adult perhaps in his 20's) and friends help dissuade a lynch mob who are in a frenzy of blood lust. That was but a small chapter, his smuggler friend taught Major Burnham how to throw other scouts off his trail which was quite interesting as well as Major Burnham's surprisingly clear view of the issues with the Indians. He indeed called them along with native tribes in Africa "savages" as was the parlance of their time, but he admitted to the wrongdoings of those in power in the Indian Affairs Bureau and the like, their repeated nixing of treaties, the going back on their word, the breach of trust which left many a bridge burned and doubtless cost the lives of thousands of people both settlers and Indians.Quote:
Originally Posted by Batman
He's one interesting and smart dude, if you like those books you'd like his.
added it to my 'to read' shelf on goodreads, cheers
I read the Iggy Pop biography 'Open up and bleed' last month and it was one of the best rock biographies I have read. It is an amazing life story with some of the most grueling experiences imaginable. Blood, vomit, and fights aplenty. When I was younger I looked upon those kinds of antics and the musicians who carried them out as deities, but now I just wince and say 'My, oh my!' He is an interesting chap, old James Osterberg.
I think I will read something by Richard Dawkins next, but haven't decided what. I had no idea he had a stroke earlier this year. I also didn't realise he was 75 years old. He always seemed so vigorous with that boyish, but knowledge imbued enthusiastic voice. Hopefully he will recover and live well.
I'm going to be finishing Hell at the Breech in the few days so I took a stroll to waterstones and purchased these today
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Quote:
The classic novel about a daring experiment in human intelligence
Charlie Gordon, IQ 68, is a floor sweeper and the gentle butt of everyone's jokes - until an experiment in the enhancement of human intelligence turns him into a genius.
But then Algernon, the mouse whose triumphal experimental tranformation preceded his, fades and dies, and Charlie has to face the possibility that his salvation was only temporary.
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Quote:
Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction.
"Tombstone, Arizona, during the 1880's is, in ways, our national Camelot: a never-never land where American virtues are embodied in the Earps, and the opposite evils in the Clanton gang; where the confrontation at the OK Corral takes on some of the dry purity of the Arthurian joust. Oakley Hall, in his very fine novel Warlock has restored to the myth of Tombstone its full, mortal, blooded humanity. Wyatt Earp is transmogrified into a gunfighter named Blaisdell who . . . is summoned to the embattled town of Warlock by a committee of nervous citizens expressly to be a hero, but finds that he cannot, at last, live up to his image; that there is a flaw not only in him, but also, we feel, in the entire set of assumptions that have allowed the image to exist. . . . Before the agonized epic of Warlock is over with—the rebellion of the proto-Wobblies working in the mines, the struggling for political control of the area, the gunfighting, mob violence, the personal crises of those in power—the collective awareness that is Warlock must face its own inescapable Horror: that what is called society, with its law and order, is as frail, as precarious, as flesh and can be snuffed out and assimilated back into the desert as easily as a corpse can. It is the deep sensitivity to abysses that makes Warlock one of our best American novels. For we are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall's to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall." —Thomas Pynchon
Batman is an undercover bookworm....haahaaaaQuote:
Originally Posted by Batman
ha, I'm a massive bookworm
Anyways I finished Flowers for Algernon, brilliant book that is, only took me two days to read, its actually quite sad, its unlike me to think that of a book, I can find them depressing but sad isn't a word I usually use to describe a book.
4/5 from me
I started this yesterday
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I'm only 30 or 40 pages in and you can see why it was a wee bit on the contraversial side, he don't half give his missus a kicking at the start of the book.Quote:
La Bete humaine (1890), the seventeenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart series, is one of Zola's most violent and explicit works. On one level a tale of murder, passion, and possession, it is also a compassionate study of individuals derailed by atavistic forces beyond their control. Zola considered this his 'most finely worked' novel, and in it he powerfully evokes life at the end of the Second Empire in France, where society seemed to be hurtling into the future like the new locomotives and railways it was building. While expressing the hope that human nature evolves through education and gradually frees itself of the burden of inherited evil, he is constantly reminding us that under the veneer of technological progress there remains, always, the beast within. This new translation captures Zola's fast-paced yet deliberately dispassionate style, while the introduction and detailed notes place the novel in its social, historical, and literary context.
I think this is going to take me a while to read its not exactly easy going, my next book was going to be another one from the 1890's but I think I'm going to need a break from that era after this one so I'll probably go with the 4th Salander book, can't remember what its called now, something like the girl who tickled the donkeys bollocks or something like that
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Thats the badger
I really enjoyed two out of the first three books (I am one of the few people that enjoyed the third and thought the second was terrible) and I know it isn't Steig Larrson writing but I'm going to give it a go and see if the dead horse has been flogged.Quote:
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO IS BACK WITH A UK NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist have not been in touch for some time.
Then Blomkvist is contacted by renowned Swedish scientist Professor Balder. Warned that his life is in danger, but more concerned for his son's well-being, Balder wants Millennium to publish his story - and it is a terrifying one.
More interesting to Blomkvist than Balder's world-leading advances in Artificial Intelligence, is his connection with a certain female superhacker.
It seems that Salander, like Balder, is a target of ruthless cyber gangsters - and a violent criminal conspiracy that will very soon bring terror to the snowbound streets of Stockholm, to the Millennium team, and to Blomkvist and Salander themselves.
Having said that I may take a wonder down to waterstones or jump on Amazon today its pay day and I'm off work next week so I may purchase a book or two to get me through.
I'm also off down the charity shop next week, I really need to sort through my books desperately, I've got 2 bookcases which are overflowing and just looking around the living room there are 5 books on the coffee table 5 books on the floor 3 books on the settee and a pile in front of the book case.
I'm gunna have a look through at the ones I don't want any more and get rid of them.
took 68 books to the charity shop today
These are the ones that were in my living room
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bookl case is looking much nicer now
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Just some of the books in my store
I am astonished that Denilson did not mention
'Things Fall Apart' by Chinua Achebe
Achebe is the most translated African author and is quite well known for his critique of Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' which he discussed Conrad's racism found in that book.
....but perhaps he has read it already
That book (Things Fall Apart) is a novel. I hardly ever read novels.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Kabong
I would put money on you never actually having read any of the above books you mentioned
Well alright then....I guess I'll leave you to reading books authored by the "prince of pan-afrikanism" (yeah he spells it with a k) then :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by denilson200That book (Things Fall Apart) is a novel. I hardly ever read novels.Quote:
Originally Posted by El Kabong
What does Dr. Umar Abdullah-Johnson have to teach us???
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2GNakv5AjI
....well isn't THAT special "I can always tell with the boys, because the mother psychologically castrated them....what do I mean by that mothers? Because you know yall tongue can CUT!"
HAHAHAHAHAHA....is that it Denilson? Were you psychologically castrated?
Dr. Umar knows his shit. So that's why I turned gay?
I prefer the rice cooker incident theory ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Gandalf
#onlyoldsaddoschoolerswillgetit.
I've just finished 'La Bete humaine' really good book, its not a long read at 368 pages but you can't just plough through it, you can't help but take your time with it.
The story is really good and whilst you get to like a few of the characters they all show their ruthless side, one woman is the catalyst for everything that happens in it, there is only one character who doesn't do anything wrong although he ends up the one punished for other peoples crimes.
Really good, I might get some more of Zola's books.
Anyway's onto the next book, this one should only take a day or so to get through, looks like a bog standard horror but I need something that doesn't require much thought at the moment.
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Rather than adding another post I thought I'd just update this oneQuote:
Amanda loves her husband, her converted loft apartment and her job as an architect. On the surface she appears to have done everything right. So why does she feel so off-balance? There's a strange tapping noise in the apartment but, as Amanda's husband Ed has pointed out, it can't be a mouse because they only hear it when she's around. Much to her husband's disgust, Amanda has also taken up smoking again. Even the friendly dog at the train station shies away from her these days. Could it be something to do with the lustful and violent dreams she's been having recently? We could devote our lives to making sense of the odd, the inexplicable, the coincidental, but most of us don't. Neither does Amanda. After all, what we think is impossible happens all the time...
Finished come closer this morning barely 12 hours after starting it, bog standard book on demonic possession, full of cliches whilst at the same time trying to put a new sort of spin on it, it was a decent read I suppose but if there was an extra 200 pages it could have been really good, as it is it is just a decent, mindless read.
Gravity - the truth
I can't put it down