Not sure if there's already a thread for this, but here it goes.

I finished reading Orwell's "1984" this morning (awesome).

I'm reading

Tina Fey's "Bossypants"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9418...pants?ac=1

"Girl in translation"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7362...earch=true

"Brainstorm"
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707532-brainstorm

What about you?

I re-read 1984 about once every two years. One of my favorite books. Have you read the appendix on Newspeak ? It's fascinating.

I'm currently reading "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley Robinson. A "what if" story that explores what would have happened if the black death had killed 99% of the European population instead of the estimated 30-60%. It's very pleasant to read, the writing style is a bit off-putting at first, but after a few chapters it grows on you. A very refreshing book, original, and pretty absorbing.

Linval Wrote:I re-read 1984 about once every two years. One of my favorite books. Have you read the appendix on Newspeak ? It's fascinating.

Yup. Absolutely genius.

I forgot in the post above, but there are also two books I'm looking to read besides "animal farm". One is Jose Saramago's "Blindness", and I'd like to read my first book in spanish "one hundred years of solitude", by Gabiel Garcia Marquez. And I'm also aiming to read the Resident Evil series

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2526.Blindness
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/320....itude?ac=1



Any advice on mindfucking books?

I'm not a big fan of "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Tried it, put it down fairly quickly. Not my cup of tea I guess. Animal Farm is great though.

CarolinaCG Wrote:Any advice on mindfucking books?

Any well-curated Lovecraft collection.

For literal mindf*ck (as in, people getting their mind very literally f*cked by a bunch of psychic creeps), "Carrion Comfort" by Dan Simmons is a great read. Very entertaining. A good re-imagining of the vampire mythos.

For more insidious mindf*ck, コインロッカー・ベイビーズ by Murakami Ryu ("Coin Locker Babies" in english) is pretty good.

Thanks!
With mindfuck I actually mean books though provoking books, such as 1984 itself. Thanks for the recommendation, going to read some reviews on it!

Rina Wrote:Any advice on mindfucking books?

the white hotel by d.m.thomas
the arabian nightmare by robert irwin
gargoyles by thomas bernhard
pedro paramo by juan rulfo
the cage by martin vaughn james

i'm currently reading japanese books, so i don't know what to write...the last book i read in english was julio's day by gilbert hernandez. it tells a life story of a 100-year old man in 100 pages.

umetani666 Wrote:i'm currently reading japanese books, so i don't know what to write...

Is it bad manners to ask about Japanese books in this thread instead of starting a new one? If not, please tell us (me) about the Japanese books you're currently reading umetani666 .

umetani666 Wrote:

Rina Wrote:Any advice on mindfucking books?

the white hotel by d.m.thomas
the arabian nightmare by robert irwin
gargoyles by thomas bernhard
pedro paramo by juan rulfo
the cage by martin vaughn james

i'm currently reading japanese books, so i don't know what to write...the last book i read in english was julio's day by gilbert hernandez. it tells a life story of a 100-year old man in 100 pages.

Let me add "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy to the category of "mind blowing" books.

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Meridian-Eve...179&sr=1-1

When I want my mind blown, I read non-fiction. I don't have much reading time lately so I've been listening to the audiobook of A short History of Almost Everything by Bill Bryson. Although I read his books with a small grain of salt, any of Malcolm Gladwell's books leaves me thinking about things differently.

In the last couple of years I found two non-fiction authors that I thought were absolutely incredible.

The first is John Krakauer, who I had vaguely heard of because he had wrote Into The Wild, which became a movie. But actually, I read him because I visited Tibet and made the journey from Lhasa into the Himalayas, ending at the base camp of Mt. Everest. When I talked to my aunt about it--and she's a very smart lady--she recommended Krakauer's book on climbing Everest, Into Thin Air. Krakauer accompanied a climbing party as a journalist in 1996, and as bad luck would have it he was on the mountain for the events of May 10-11, when a total of eight people died, including four in his party, when a blizzard hit the mountain. It had been the deadliest day in the mountain's history until April of this year. Anyway, it's a crazy book and everyone should read it.

He also wrote a history of the Mormon religion, as well as an exploration into fundamentalist Mormon communities around today, called Under The Banner of Heaven. Also absolutely wonderful.

The other author who I really love is Eric Larson. He wrote a book about a serial killer who murdered people in Chicago around the time the world's fair was held there in 1893, called The Devil in the White City. He also wrote a book about the American ambassador to Germany as Hitler was coming to power, William E. Dodd. The book is In the Garden of Beasts.

All four of these are crazy page-turners and you should definitely read them!

Tzadeck Wrote:The first is John Krakauer, who I had vaguely heard of because he had wrote Into The Wild, which became a movie. But actually, I read him because I visited Tibet and made the journey from Lhasa into the Himalayas, ending at the base camp of Mt. Everest. When I talked to my aunt about it--and she's a very smart lady--she recommended Krakauer's book on climbing Everest, Into Thin Air. Krakauer accompanied a climbing party as a journalist in 1996, and as bad luck would have it he was on the mountain for the events of May 10-11, when a total of eight people died, including four in his party, when a blizzard hit the mountain. It had been the deadliest day in the mountain's history until April of this year. Anyway, it's a crazy book and everyone should read it.

I actually have that book in the to-read list. You jut made me want to read it even more!
Were you inspired? Did you learn any important life lesson from it?

I've read Into thin Air as well and it's a pretty good book. It's not one that changed the way I see the world or anything, but it's well written and a page turner. Into the Wild made me think a little more (about self sufficiency and things like that).

If you're into outdoor adventure kind of things, I'd like to recommend Touching the Void. I haven't read the book but if it's anything like the Kevin McDonald Documentary it just might blow your mind. In case you don't know, it's about a climber who was left for dead with a broken leg on top of a mountain in the Andies and miraculously makes his way down the mountain to safety.

aldebrn Wrote:Is it bad manners to ask about Japanese books in this thread instead of starting a new one? If not, please tell us (me) about the Japanese books you're currently reading umetani666 .

it's a comic book, to be precise...a collection of short stories by つげ義春 (tsuge yoshiharu). his most famous ones are ねじ式 and ゲンセンカン主人

Had this book here for some time, now reading "Ender's Game" and "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience".

Still need to finish "Bossypants".

In my to read list (books I own and want to read before moving to something else).

"Animal farm"
"The road less traveled"
"Resident Evil Zero Hour"
a book on profiling and criminal psychology, can't remember the name
"The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon"
"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"
"Fight Club"
"Into Thin Air"
"100 years of solitude"

After these I'll follow your advice on thought provoking books.

Rina Wrote:"Animal farm"

Speaking of Orwell, I just read his book about his experiences during the Spanish Civil War, "Homage to Catalonia." He wrote it just six months after he escaped Barcelona, while the war was still going on, and it's pretty intense. Mostly because he sustained a near-fatal wound while on the front lines (which I had no idea about), and he was almost imprisoned and killed by the Spanish government. He had joined a militia group under the control of a Marxist political party (POUM), which was fighting on the side of the Spanish government (the Republicans) against Franco. Nevertheless, the government was afraid that POUM was too revolutionary, and the large Communist party supporting the government was against POUM (because POUM was anti-Stalinist), so members of POUM were rounded up, imprisoned, and some were killed--by the people they were fighting for and alongside. Orwell and his wife barely escaped alive.

The book can be a little confusing at times because there were so many political parties and groups fighting each other at various parts, but I really enjoyed it. A lot of classic Orwell-isms (Stuff like, "It's the same in all wars; the soldiers do the fighting, the journalists do the shouting, and no true patriot every gets near the front-line trench, except for on the briefest of propaganda tours. Sometimes it is a comfort to me to think that the aeroplane is altering the conditions of war. Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him")

Rina Wrote:"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"

My advice is to skip this one, haha.

Here's an aside: I don't think I ever read a book and enjoyed it simply because I saw it at the bookstore and it looked interesting.

(Actually, there is one exception: The Firm by John Grisham. When the book came out, I remember standing in the bookstore reading it because I couldn't put it down).

I hate books that try to hard to capture the reader's attention, like one that started "You are standing in the bookstore reading this..." I threw the book right back onto the shelf and was like, Nooooo!

Tzadeck Wrote:

Rina Wrote:"Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking"

My advice is to skip this one, haha.

Why's that?

Rina Wrote:Why's that?

Have you read any of his other books? I read Blink and The Tipping Point, and on the whole they both have the same problem, but Blink is the bigger culprit. Gladwell chooses a vague position on something, and then uses a lot of interesting anecdotes and examples to support his position. The main problem with both books is that anyone with a touch of skepticism in them will realize that all those anecdotes and examples aren't nearly enough support to convince one to accept his position. But, luckily, the reader may be able to accept that and simply enjoy the interesting examples without taking the overall message very seriously. I admit that I did to some extent, and the whole reason I read some Gladwell is that I enjoyed doing that when listening to a couple of his lectures online.

To take it a step further, I realized that whenever I knew something about the anecdote he was describing, his description of it was either wrong or lacking in depth. For example, he talks about Kitty Genovese (I think in The Tipping Point?), and he gives the tired 1970's introduction-to-psychology depiction of her murder; the story being that thirty-eight people watched Genovese get murdered and stood by doing nothing. Of course, that account has been widely discredited, before the publication date of Gladwell's book, and yet he prints the story with the old-fashion incorrect story-line. (Note that the Genovese story was already largely discredited prior to the study about it done in 2007. When I took a psychology class as an undergrad we were already learning that the Genovese story was false)

What's more, often even if I know something about a topic if I read a new author's take on it I will learn more about it or see something from a different perspective. But, inevitably, when Gladwell presents one of his examples he never has the depth to do that.

And, the worst, is that I think Gladwell is smart enough to know that his books are silly vague nonsense, and he just knows how to sell books to a liberal half-intelligent giant TED-like audience. It's almost like he's an Ann Coulter for people on the left who fancy themselves as smart.

Nope, never read Gladwell, but will soon. Thanks for that explanation!

btw, stopped reading "ender's game". Not for me. Instead, couldn't resist and started reading another dystopian novel, but since I finished 1984 not long ago, intead of "animal farm" I'm now reading "This perfect day".

http://www.amazon.com/This-Perfect-Day-A...op?ie=UTF8

That's a fair criticism of Gladwell in my opinion. Reading one of his books a couple of years ago I found that while the anecdotes were individually interesting, the "argument" didn't amount to much. He is a decent story teller. But first and foremost he is a salesperson. The product is the "big idea", as it is with those TED talks. Gotta love that American optimism though.

Although I love reading Gladwell I have to agree with this. I like reading him to get exposed to certain ideas and stories and then follow up on researching the stories that interest me. I also like listening to his audiobooks as he reads them himself and is a talented storyteller in my opinion.

The troubling thing about Blink was that there was no conclusion. Sometimes first reactions were accurate, sometimes they weren't. But he never presented a useful heuristic to suggest when first reactions might be useful and when not.

The things I've been reading lately:
The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke
Fantasy, racially diverse Arabs riding giant bugs! Civilization depends on the control of rain fall and water preservation; most everyone that can do this well enough to bring rain from the ocean is dead. Politics! Evil plots! This volume actually feels darker at the beginning than it does at the end, which is weird to think about, since the progression of this volume is 'bad to worse'. Entertaining; worth reading if you think it's interesting.

The Magickers Chronicles: Volume One by Emily Drake
Kinda weird feeling, due to the age of the protagonist and the way the book reads. Honestly, I'm confused as to whether it was supposed to be higher-leveled and slightly edgy, being aimed at a younger audience, or light and vaguely nostalgic for older readers. Doesn't help that I forgot where I found it and don't feel like looking it up. Review on the cover claims it's "America's answer to the Harry Potter series", which it is not, don't expect it to be. Kinda fun to read, but incoherent at times (poor build up to things that happen such that they might as well have said 'because magic' and continued).

Masks by E. C. Blake
Dystopia? Dystopia. Oh and magic, 'cause fantasy (it fits, though). Entertaining; looking forward to the sequel.

Haven't really read yet (a chapter in, at the most):
The Edge of the World by Kevin J. Anderson
Ships. Uncharted places. Adventure~

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins
Intriguing progression. What the heck is wrong with this guy!?

Looking at this list, one might deduce that four-fifths of the books I read are fantastical; this is inaccurate, the real ratio is far closer to one than this sample suggests.

sholum Wrote:The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke

I was wondering if this one was any good. The cover really caught my attention at a bookstore for some reasons (it was bright and red and it looked coooooool). I might just get it now.

sholum Wrote:Looking at this list, one might deduce that four-fifths of the books I read are fantastical; this is inaccurate, the real ratio is far closer to one than this sample suggests.

I feel you. My own ratio is closer to 50% fantasy though.

The rest is science-fiction.

I just finished The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's excellent. Very original and well-researched. I've posted a summary a few posts up if anyone is interested.

I'm on The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss now. I'm not very far in, so I can't really comment on the world building and all, but I like how the story is told - entirely in first person, which gives a very interesting and almost confidential flavor to the book. It's like listening to a particularly gifted storyteller crafting his epic around a campfire. A very pleasant read so far, highly entertaining.

Linval Wrote:I'm on The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss now. I'm not very far in, so I can't really comment on the world building and all, but I like how the story is told - entirely in first person, which gives a very interesting and almost confidential flavor to the book. It's like listening to a particularly gifted storyteller crafting his epic around a campfire. A very pleasant read so far, highly entertaining.

I really enjoyed that one; when I got to the end, I was really glad that the second book had just been released!
It's interesting, reading a story told from two times at once. At first, I thought the whole 'life retrospection' would remove most of the suspense, but the author does a good job of working with it and I don't remember a single attempt to use 'will he survive?' as suspense in the 'past' parts. It's fun thinking about how things will turn out in both timelines based on the other; not just 'what' happens, but 'how' it happens.

Another recommendation:
"The Wardstone Chronicles" by Joseph Delaney (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wardstone_Chronicles). The titles vary between regions (always aggravating), thus the link to make it easier.
Despite being written for a younger audience, this is an excellent series. Differing from the usual monsters in most modern tales (especially for children), the monsters in these are truly monstrous. These books definitely aren't scary (well, maybe for kids), but they are still well-written enough to be enjoyed by an older reader; I only picked them up maybe three or four ago and have been following ever since. The individual volumes are fairly quick reads, so they're nice to go through when you don't have time to invest on a 600 page book with 'need a magnifying glass' sized font.
Also, the illustrations at the beginning of each chapter are wonderful.

I'll second "The Name of the Wind" as a great fantasy book. The second book is equally good, and I'm impatiently waiting for the last book in the trilogy. I would put it on par with A Song of Ice and Fire, but with focus on one character mostly instead of a hundred.

I finished reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" which the movie Blade Runner was based on. Good stuff. Currently I'm reading "Knights of the Cornerstone" by James P. Blaylock. Haven't gotten far enough to get an impression of it yet.