Books What Are You Reading or Listening To?

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Now moving on to Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich. The HBO series used a lot of material from this book.  

 

Still reading IT on the side. 

[EternallDarkness]

4 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Now moving on to Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich. The HBO series used a lot of material from this book.  

 

Still reading IT on the side. 

 

I loved almost everything about IT...almost

[Chairslinger]

2 hours ago, EternallDarkness said:

 

I loved almost everything about IT...almost

 

Can't believe the new movie left it out....I thought it was supposed to be grittier and more faithful to the book than the original miniseries! 

 

 

[EternallDarkness]

1 hour ago, Chairslinger said:

 

Can't believe the new movie left it out....I thought it was supposed to be grittier and more faithful to the book than the original miniseries! 

 

 

 

should have been left out of the book. I don't know WTF King was smoking at the time he wrote that. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

5 minutes ago, EternallDarkness said:

 

should have been left out of the book. I don't know WTF King was smoking at the time he wrote that. 

By King's own admission, it was coke and booze during the 80s.

[Chairslinger]

10 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

By King's own admission, it was coke and booze during the 80s.

 

It is my understanding that the scenes from Tommyknockers depicting violent nosebleeds were "inspired" by King's own experience with voluminous nosebleeds caused by doing so my coke at the time he was writing the book.

[EternallDarkness]

40 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

By King's own admission, it was coke and booze during the 80s.

 

 

lol, actually I know. He's very open about how out of control he was....even with the booze and coke that shouldn't have been in the book 

 

 

26 minutes ago, Chairslinger said:

 

It is my understanding that the scenes from Tommyknockers depicting violent nosebleeds were "inspired" by King's own experience with voluminous nosebleeds caused by doing so my coke at the time he was writing the book.

 

He's borrowed from his life frequently, and often quite successfully.

[elbobo]

Death's End by Liu Cixin

 

Last part of the 3 body problem trilogy. Massive in scope to point where it becomes a bit of an issue, leaves really interest plot lines hanging to jump decades into the future and then even larger time jumps as the book progresses. Wasn't a huge fan of the end as well. The series is very strong on the science of what is going on but the 2nd and 3rd books hand waved a lot of tech into existence to just move things along.

 

The writing in the 3rd book is immensely superior to that of the first one to the point where I could hardly believe the same person wrote both. There is a 30 page chapter where the strategy to save humanity is disguised in a fairy tale and over the next 100 pages he slowly peels back the layers of the allegory.

 

I know Amazon is developing this series into a show supposedly with a massive budget which it will need, the biggest thing they are going to overcome in the adaptation is how they are going to explain things without there just being a character sitting there given massive 20 minute exposition dumps a few times every season.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Last few days I've finished You Have the Right to Remain Innocent by James Duane and If These Walls Could Talk: Boston Red Sox by Jerry Remy and Nick Cafardo. 

 

Currently reading The Passenger by Lisa Lutz and working my way through IT. I'm only on page 440 or so of the latter, though. Only a 1000 pages to go!

[Chairslinger]

4 hours ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

Last few days I've finished You Have the Right to Remain Innocent by James Duane and If These Walls Could Talk: Boston Red Sox by Jerry Remy and Nick Cafardo. 

 

Currently reading The Passenger by Lisa Lutz and working my way through IT. I'm only on page 440 or so of the latter, though. Only a 1000 pages to go!

 

 

Are you relating to any of the characters? The reason why IT is probably still my favorite standalone novel from King is how magical I find it as a ode to childhood.

 

Even though I was the exact opposite of Ben, the skinny kid in class, I related to him so much that reading the book, especially his parts, is almost like remembering my own childhood.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

38 minutes ago, Chairslinger said:

 

 

Are you relating to any of the characters? The reason why IT is probably still my favorite standalone novel from King is how magical I find it as a ode to childhood.

 

Even though I was the exact opposite of Ben, the skinny kid in class, I related to him so much that reading the book, especially his parts, is almost like remembering my own childhood.

I'd say Ben to a small extent, but that's about it.

 

I don't dislike it, I really get into it at times, then it switches gears and I'm thrown off again. I'm just not seeing why it had to be that damn long.

[EternallDarkness]

1 hour ago, Chairslinger said:

 

 

Are you relating to any of the characters? The reason why IT is probably still my favorite standalone novel from King is how magical I find it as a ode to childhood.

 

Even though I was the exact opposite of Ben, the skinny kid in class, I related to him so much that reading the book, especially his parts, is almost like remembering my own childhood.

 

If you haven't read it yet, I can't recommend Boys Life by Robert McCammon enough. It's my favorite book, and you talk about an ode to the magic of childhood, you can't find a more magical book than Boys Life. 

[elbobo]

Just a heads up used hardcovers are stupid cheap on amazon, often half the cost of the kindle version including shipping. You can get most fiction books for $5-$10 delivered unless it is some out of print book. 

[gamer.tv]

I'm at the end of the Amber Spyglass, but just haven't pushed through the last 150 pages or so (I say that like I haven't enjoyed it quite a bit). I need to go charity shopping soon to see if I can pick up some new reads for the rest of summer.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Finished The Passenger last night. It was a fun ride up until the end where it just let some major threads seemingly end without consequence and I hate when stories do that. Oh, well. Moving on, I'm actually reading IT at a faster pace lately. I'm sure I'll hit another wall with it at some point, but it's been moving along nicely. I really do like these characters. 

 

I also started reading Collision on Tenerife: The How and Why of the World's Worst Aviation Disaster by Jon Ziomek. My morbid mind likes reading about plane crashes and this is the big one. It had a small feature in a recent issue of Smithsonian Air and Space, so I picked it up.

[darkness35]

Walden

[rc0101]

Deadman's Walk by Larry McMurtry. 

[EternallDarkness]

Working my way through A Long Way Home any Richard Chizmar, The Invited by Jennifer McMahon, and Fletch by Gregory McDonald as a few others I am just chipping away a few pages here and there. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Finished Tenerife, I knew the story before, but goddamn, parts of that were gut wrenching. 

 

Now for for a novel that’s probably going to be equally tough on my emotions, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead. Just came out a couple weeks ago. I read his last book, The Underground Railroad and found it really intense, so this was an easy buy for me. I need to go further back and try some of his earlier works. 

[gamer.tv]

@CastlevaniaNut18 I read the Guardian review of The Nickel Boys and it sounds well worth picking up. 

 

 

I've now finished the His Dark Materials trilogy. It certainly went in a few interesting directions and I really enjoyed the series as a whole.I could go for some more in-depth information about certain aspects of the stories and characters that appear in the story, but overall I leave satisfied. 

 

I'm not reading a book called Inspiration Teachers, Inspirational Learners as it's only a month until I start teacher training, so I need to start diving into that world. I did however pick up La Belle Sauvage today and will go to some charity shops to see if I can pick up some more books to last me the year.

[thewhyteboar]

Underground Railroad is incredible. I bought Zone One by him years ago, but I never read it. I'm interested in Nickel Boys too.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

About halfway through Nickel Boys and I can easily recommend it. Between Fire Emblem releasing and the final season of Orange is the New Black out, I’m reading this slower than I normally would.  

[EternallDarkness]

Finished The Long Way Home and am now pretty much ignoring everything as I am completely captivated by Children of the Dark by Jonathan Janz 

[elbobo]

Neuromancer

 

Surprised it took me so long to get through a sub 300 page book but Gibson's writing style required me to reread paragraphs continuously. Why on earth he deems it necessary to a have a conversation between several characters and not tell who is talking is beyond me. There are some interesting ideas, the imagery is quite good at times and there is not getting around the fact that he invented a subgenre but it is not really a great book IMO. I'll read the next two in the trilogy to see if style improves or at least I get used to it.

[Dre801]

A Random Walk Down Wall Street

[Mercury33]

In my continuing “Why did it take me so long to read Neil Gaiman” tour...

 

Neverwhere

 

Not that far into but really enjoying it so far. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

If I have time tonight, I'm going to start A Night to Remember by Walter Lord. Seems crazy that I never read this when I was a kid obsessed with Titanic. I had several other books on the sinking and read constantly about it. 

[Dre801]

Underground Airlines.  Set in the present day, where slavery never ended.  I was intrigued.

[Nokra]

We're reading The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut for my book club. It was my suggestion, since I'd read it a couple years ago and loved it. I think it might be my favorite Vonnegut book, which is saying something.  

[rc0101]

Completed Dead Man's Walk so I'll move on to book two...Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry. 

[gamer.tv]

So one teaching book down, now onto The Teachers' Standards: 3rd Edition. To balance that, along with the Philip Pullman book mentioned, I also picked up The Falcon of Sparta as I do like some Conn Iggulden. 

[Nokt]

Currently reading Stardust by Gaiman. I love the short fairy tale vibe from his books. The part where the witch turns the boy into a sheep/goat so she can have two messed me up. For whatever reason people struggling to make ends meet makes me incredibly sad and thinking about the mother just left to rot. It was a surprisingly dark tone I never got from Neverwhere or Ocean at the End of the Lane.  

 

I also went on a book buying spree. 

Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer

Kokoro - Natsume Soseki

Graveyard Book - Gaiman

5 Centimeters Per Second - Kanoh, Arata

Circe - Madeline Miller

Red Sister - Mark Lawrence 

 

Excited about 5cmps mostly because Shinkai wanted it written to fill in what he felt was lacking from the movie. So it'll be cool to see that extra insight. Apparently the manga is the definitive experience despite being the last of the 3 forms of media. Never could get into comics/manga though, just not for me. 

Don't know if Annihilation will make any more of an impact on me than the movie did, but it interested me enough to want to know more. 

[thewhyteboar]

Circe is an incredible book. Enjoy.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

26 minutes ago, Nokt said:

Currently reading Stardust by Gaiman. I love the short fairy tale vibe from his books. The part where the witch turns the boy into a sheep/goat so she can have two messed me up. For whatever reason people struggling to make ends meet makes me incredibly sad and thinking about the mother just left to rot. It was a surprisingly dark tone I never got from Neverwhere or Ocean at the End of the Lane.  

 

I also went on a book buying spree. 

Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer

Kokoro - Natsume Soseki

Graveyard Book - Gaiman

5 Centimeters Per Second - Kanoh, Arata

Circe - Madeline Miller

Red Sister - Mark Lawrence 

 

Excited about 5cmps mostly because Shinkai wanted it written to fill in what he felt was lacking from the movie. So it'll be cool to see that extra insight. Apparently the manga is the definitive experience despite being the last of the 3 forms of media. Never could get into comics/manga though, just not for me. 

Don't know if Annihilation will make any more of an impact on me than the movie did, but it interested me enough to want to know more. 

I don't know any of those books, but doesn't a book buying spree bring so much joy?  

[Nokt]

35 minutes ago, CastlevaniaNut18 said:

I don't know any of those books, but doesn't a book buying spree bring so much joy?  

I think its the first time I've actually ever had a book buying spree, it definitely has me excited to read them. Maybe I can actually hit my one book a month goal I set for myself if I just grind out a few more.