IGX

Currently reading Slaughterhouse 5. Understand now why it is held in such high regard.

So basically we're all reading books we read/should have read in high school?

NTTAWWT

Confession, I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Or seen the movie.

nafod wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 1:34 am Confession, I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Or seen the movie.

Movie first. You're in for a treat.

Fat Cat wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 12:46 am Also, if you haven't seen it, definitely check out The Night Manager (also Le Carré) miniseries starring Tom Hiddleston.

Loved it. House was excellent; I also like that really tall girl.

nafod wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 1:34 amConfession, I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Or seen the movie.

I started it when my stepdaughter started it, when she was in high school. Middle school? I'm gonna say high school.

Got stuck about 50 or 100 pages in, haven't finished it. She just got her Masters.

seeahill wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 2:05 am

nafod wrote: ↑Thu May 21, 2020 1:34 am Confession, I’ve never read To Kill a Mockingbird. Or seen the movie.

Movie first. You're in for a treat.

Gay and no. Book first.

How many of the books do you guys remember reading in highschool?

I can remember

To Kill a Mocking Bird
Catcher in the Rye
Animal Farm
1984
The Chrystalids
Bless The Beasts and the Children

High School

Enjoyed:

To Kill a Mockingbird
Friday Night Lights
In Cold Blood

Did Not:

Great Expectations
Catcher in the Rye
The Grapes of Wrath
My Antonia
The Great Gatsby

Bram wrote: ↑Fri May 22, 2020 7:44 pm High School

Did Not Enjoy:

The Great Gatsby

I hated GG when I read it in HS. Re-read it when I was 30, and loved it.

Well maybe I need to give it a try then. I was a sheltered kid in high school (never tried alcohol, went on a date, etc.). Probably lacked the life experience to understand it.

GG ruined a hundred years of literature. Can't think of anything to say as a writer? Just make it tragic and have a vague, meaningless, "literary" ending. The self-loathing, self indulgent NY publishing community will love it and everyone else will mindlessly follow along.

nafod wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 4:31 pm I just finished Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, gets two thumbs up. Very tense book, sci-fi. Let someone else read the first few pages, and they insisted I loan it to them, then and there.

Rolled right into its sequel, Authority, which builds on the tension from the first book. Page turner. Will get to third book in the trilogy (Acceptance) in short order, I'm sure.

70 pages into Annihilation right now. I’ve seen the movie previously and quite enjoyed it. The book thus far is quite different than the film. It has a sort of robotic cadence early on that I was a little unsure of but soon realized it’s intentional. Very tense book. Looking forward to finishing the trilogy.

I could go back through this thread but I’m lazy. Have any of you guys read the Wheel of Time series? I was seriously considering giving it a go but it’s 15 volumes(including the prequel) and a lot of reviews say it really drags from books 8-10.

If anyone here likes sparse prose that hits hard, I recommend Hard Candy by Andrew Vachss. This came to mind since several people have commented on certain works dragging or being overly long. Hard Candy is Vachss at his peak. It's the fourth in his Burke series: Flood is good but preachy, Strega is really good but some people might find it hard to buy into, Blue Belle is decent, but then Hard Candy delivers. You don't have to read them in order but it might help to read Blue Belle before HC. Very grim, gritty, crime novels written by a defense attorney in NYC. I was in NY in that time frame and the settings and dialogue are so real it almost itches.

I have been blessed with some outstanding reads.

"Voyage of the Cormorant" - beautifully written by a surfer who builds his own wooden sailboat and hunts for waves and meaning off of Southern California and Mexico. Loved it.

"The Biggest Bluff" - this came out last month. A woman with zero experience in poker sets out to play at the World Series of Poker a year after starting. She ends up winning 300,000$ and is trained by some of the best poker players in history. There is a wealth of lessons transferable to whatever you're into, I've found things I can apply to surfing, for example. My favorite lesson, "There are no bad beats." A bad beat is when you have strong cards but still lose. Her teacher says he never wants her to complain or brag about the cards she was dealt. Only discussing the decisions she made and the reasons for them.

Fantastic so far - only half-way through. The Atlantic ran an excerpt, which is great too:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/arch ... ar/613372/

"Serpico," by Peter Maas. I have never seen the film, but assuming it's based on this 1973 book. What a fucking stud. Dressed like a hippie, had a string of babes, was a karate expert, lived by his own code, traveled the world. And the writing is magical. He was a New York cop who used to dress like an old man on his off hours and walk the most dangerous city streets alone at night to capture muggers. Eventually he sets out to expose massive corruption in the police department: "The only oath I ever took, was to enforce the law - and it didn't say against everybody except the cops."

Good reviews. That's not what a bad beat is though.

Ah, I read that wrong then. Edited my above post. Thanks for catching that!

I just read that excerpt of The Biggest Bluff. Her head is so far up her own ass that I'm amazed that anyone can stand to be around her.

This may seem like a minor point, but I have contempt for writers who can't or won't get titles right. A chess Grandmaster is just that: one word, capital g. When she refers to Loek van Wely as a "grand master", that's being too lazy to get it right and too arrogant to care. That entire segment is full of self absorption and self victimization. "They are all men, of course", etc. No wonder The Atlantic loved it.

motherjuggs&speed wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 4:24 am If anyone here likes sparse prose that hits hard, I recommend Hard Candy by Andrew Vachss. This came to mind since several people have commented on certain works dragging or being overly long. Hard Candy is Vachss at his peak. It's the fourth in his Burke series: Flood is good but preachy, Strega is really good but some people might find it hard to buy into, Blue Belle is decent, but then Hard Candy delivers. You don't have to read them in order but it might help to read Blue Belle before HC. Very grim, gritty, crime novels written by a defense attorney in NYC. I was in NY in that time frame and the settings and dialogue are so real it almost itches.

Those books were pretty good. I went to see him at a book signing in Tucson and swear to god he had a female bb bodyguard. Weirder guy than you'd think from his books.

motherjuggs&speed wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:14 pm I just read that excerpt of The Biggest Bluff. Her head is so far up her own ass that I'm amazed that anyone can stand to be around her.

This may seem like a minor point, but I have contempt for writers who can't or won't get titles right. A chess Grandmaster is just that: one word, capital g. When she refers to Loek van Wely as a "grand master", that's being too lazy to get it right and too arrogant to care. That entire segment is full of self absorption and self victimization. "They are all men, of course", etc. No wonder The Atlantic loved it.

Hmmm....

For point one - that her head is up her own ass.

There is an air of that throughout the book.

For point two - that she used Grandmaster incorrectly.

There is at least one other instance of incorrect information stated. She tells her poker coach, a bit condescendingly, that foods high in cholesterol - like lobster, eggs, and avocados - don't affect your body's levels of cholesterol. He was having egg whites for his breakfast daily.

Dietary cholesterol is only found in animal foods, meaning avocados contain zero. So she's flat out wrong on that.

Not to mention that dietary cholesterol is a complicated argument, and that egg yolks also have saturated fat - which is linked to higher cholesterol levels of the bad kind.

I may write her a letter regarding that - it has already been on my mind to do so.

Regardless, she is a very good story-teller in terms of making the hands of poker gripping. And the various insights she shares about the way our minds make decisions, the traps we fall in, etc. are valuable and widely applicable.

Among various other genres, I'm currently working my way through the Barnes and Noble Classics collection. 205 titles. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/barnes ... rqvZ29Z8q8

The books are fairly inexpensive if you choose the trade paperback format.

Just broke 100 since I started January 2019. Sort of a bucket list challenge.

Farenheit 451
Probably a mistake considering my recent mood.

the fearless freep wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 8:29 pm Among various other genres, I'm currently working my way through the Barnes and Noble Classics collection. 205 titles. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/barnes ... rqvZ29Z8q8

The books are fairly inexpensive if you choose the trade paperback format.

Just broke 100 since I started January 2019. Sort of a bucket list challenge.

What was your favorite so far. This is awesome.

Bennyonesix1 wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 11:11 pm

the fearless freep wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 8:29 pm Among various other genres, I'm currently working my way through the Barnes and Noble Classics collection. 205 titles. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/barnes ... rqvZ29Z8q8

The books are fairly inexpensive if you choose the trade paperback format.

Just broke 100 since I started January 2019. Sort of a bucket list challenge.

What was your favorite so far. This is awesome.

Crime and Punishment. Sort of got me hooked on Dostoyvesky.