What are you reading

Started by Tenebracid, January 15, 2012, 08:40:21 PM

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Atrophist

Quote from: Atrophist on September 27, 2020, 04:37:35 AM
Finally got Ted Chiang's Exhalation, was on the waiting list at the library for ages. SF doesn't get any better than Chiang's previous short stories, so looking forward to this a lot.

This is absolutely glorious. As good as sci-fi gets. A couple of mediocre (by Chiang's standards) stories, but that pales into insignificance when compared with just how insanely good the best stories are. The title story, as well "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", "Omphalos" and "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" are the highlights.

I also read Wounds, by Nathan Ballingrud, another short novella and short story collection. Horror rather than sci-fi. All the stories take place in an alternate timeline where Hells exists, and it is possible to travel in and out of it, and bring out artifacts and even rescue the Damned out of Hell back into our world. One sort of YA themed story which seems strangely out of place, other than that this is incredibly good. I immediately ordered Ballingrud's previous story collection, North American Lake Monsters.

holy ghost

Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer. I really enjoyed the Southern Reach trilogy, loved Bourne and The Strange Bird and was really excited to tuck into this but..... what the fuck? It feels like he really phoned this one in. Was not a huge fan.

Kent State by Derf Backderf - did I mention this already? It was fucking GREAT. Dude knows how to make a comic really shine, writing, art, presentation. A+++++++

Currently reading The Witcher #2 - fourth one in the series for me with the two collections. Planning on enjoying something light and uncomplicated.

Nolan

Richard Gavin - Grotesquerie

One of my favourite contemporary weird fiction writers. Disturbing without being over the top.

Just read the Hijokaidan book, not bad and definitely worth a read but for me it needed an editor; the quality of writing was uneven and the interjection of personal opinion needed to be directed better. Takes a long time to get going.

absurdexposition

Quote from: Nolan on October 24, 2020, 03:26:44 PM
Just read the Hijokaidan book, not bad and definitely worth a read but for me it needed an editor; the quality of writing was uneven and the interjection of personal opinion needed to be directed better. Takes a long time to get going.

I haven't read it yet, but I find this to be a very common problem with a good number of "underground" music books that have come out in the past few years. It's a bummer.
Primitive Isolation Tactics
Scream & Writhe distro and Absurd Exposition label
Montreal, QC
https://www.screamandwrithe.com

Into_The_Void

"Ride the Tiger" of Julius Evola. I read it one time through already, to underline the most significant parts. Reading it a second time to understand it properly. Intense book, for sure son of its time, anachronistic and visionary at the same time, but absolutely fascinating and imbued of a deep mysticism and a rigorous philosophical and analytical character.
https://sabruxa.bandcamp.com/ (Industrial / ambient)

holy ghost

Quote from: absurdexposition on October 24, 2020, 04:30:31 PM
Quote from: Nolan on October 24, 2020, 03:26:44 PM
Just read the Hijokaidan book, not bad and definitely worth a read but for me it needed an editor; the quality of writing was uneven and the interjection of personal opinion needed to be directed better. Takes a long time to get going.

I haven't read it yet, but I find this to be a very common problem with a good number of "underground" music books that have come out in the past few years. It's a bummer.

I finished it last night, I enjoyed it given the subject matter, but the writing lacked clarity, it definitely dragged on and needed editing. I definitely think the scope was a little narrow, Junko is only mentioned five pages before the end!! IMO I think the book would have been MUCH more interesting had it covered Hijokaidan up to the present day and skipped a lot of what was covered, particularly the descriptions of EVERY SHOW they played prior to releasing an LP. However, the title tells you exactly what the scope of the book actually is so "you get what you pay for" as they say.

I honestly wanted to go back and re-read Japanoise which was a much more cohesive and interesting read after this.

ddmurph

Pity to hear about the Hijokaidan book. As much as I love Hijokaidan, I think I'll give the book a skip and stick with the G-Modern essays (should still be available somewhere online ... I was nerdy enough to print them out a few years back and stuff them into the 30th anniversary box).

Currently hopping between Alexander & Ann Shulgin - TIHKAL and Nick Davies - Dark Heart. I reckon a lot of people here would like the Nick Davies one ... blurb:

QuoteOn a rainy autumn evening in a fairground near the centre of Nottingham, Nick Davies noticed two young boys, no more than twelve years old, and realised that while all around them people were preparing for fun, these two were setting out with grim determination to do something very different. They were trying to sell their bodies. Davies befriended the boys and discovered that they were part of a network of children who were selling themselves on the streets of the city, running a nightly gauntlet of dangers – pimps, punters, the Vice Squad, disease, drugs – and yet, most mysteriously, they could not be stopped. They seemed to be drawn towards their own destruction.

This experience propelled Davies into a journey of discovery, following the trail of human destruction as the politics of neoliberalism released a wave of poverty over the lives of millions of men, women and children in the United Kingdom. He found other boys and girls selling themselves for sex on the streets of cities across the country and began to see that their motive for doing this was not simply that they were poor and wanted money but that they had been deeply damaged by the experience of growing up in the chaos of the newly impoverished communities and broken families.

He set out to follow the trail of damage – emotional, physical, social, spiritual – which had been left by the flood of poverty. It led him deep into the new slums and ghettoes of the UK's green and pleasant land, into crack houses and brothels and illegal gambling dens as well as into the homes of ordinary families who were suddenly sinking into debt and despair. He befriended street gangs and their victims, rough sleepers and drug dealers as well as the social workers and teachers and doctors who were struggling to deal with the problems which the new poverty was inflicting on those it struck.

Dark Heart not only tells the tales of the men, women and children who Davies found living in this hidden Britain but also traces the cruel and complacent policies which had manufactured poverty on a scale and of a kind which once had appeared to have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

eraciator

That Nick Davies book is great.

I think people here might enjoy Chav Solidarity by D Hunter too - abject memoir from the UK:


Two days after I ran away from home that first time, after spending the first night sleeping underneath a tree at the top of the Forest Rec, I tried to rob a man in a wheelchair. I saw him moving through the park alone, and it was dark so I thought I could handle it. I raced up behind him holding a small knife and before I could hold it to him he'd swung his wheel chair and slapped me to the ground. I don't really remember what words were spoken, but he managed to have his hands around my neck pretty tightly pretty quickly. He made it clear that I was going to suck him off or he was going to kill me then and there. I have no idea if he was someone capable of that, as I was a couple of years away from being able to make that judgement. I found his dick inside my mouth, and he moved my head up and down until he came inside. Once he had emptied himself he lifted my head up and drove it against his forehead. The next thing I knew I saw him on the floor, his wheel chair a good five feet away and three kids, a little older than me kicking the crap out of him. I watched this from the floor for a couple of minutes, before one of the kids turned around and walked over to me. She offered her hand and helped me up, and as she did so indicated the man on the floor. I think she must have said it, but maybe she didn't, either way it was enough for me to understand that I should give the man a few healthy kicks.

cr

Just started I await the Devil's coming by Mary MacLane. I like the first few pages, so I will probably go on.

Soloman Tump

Got this as a christmas present, diving in presently.  There is a BBC podcast of him reading parts of this book which I enjoyed.

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake - How fungi shapes our world, our mind and our future.


EyeSquared

Been on a wrestling autobiography kick. Just finished "Sabu: Scars, Silence, and Superglue" by Sabu and Kenny Casanova, and "New Jack" by New Jack and Norman. Neither are particularly well-written (probably because both men have suffered their fair share of concussions), but they are packed with great stories from the glory days of ECW.

ddmurph

#926
Quote from: Soloman Tump on January 05, 2021, 03:18:24 PM
Got this as a christmas present, diving in presently.  There is a BBC podcast of him reading parts of this book which I enjoyed.

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake - How fungi shapes our world, our mind and our future.



My wife picked this up a few days ago. Looking forward to reading it also. Tenuous connection to this forum: Morphogenesis are named after the work of Rupert Sheldrake, Merlin Sheldrake's father.


Quote from: eraciator on November 13, 2020, 11:04:23 PM
That Nick Davies book is great.

I think people here might enjoy Chav Solidarity by D Hunter too - abject memoir from the UK

Forgot to say thanks for this recommendation! Will check this out for sure.


I'm currently reading Mark O'Connell - To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death. Really enjoying it so far. He had another book last year, Notes from an Apocalypse, which sounds great also. Covers all things End Times ...  doomsday cults, survivalists, space colonists, etc.

holy ghost

I finally read Noise/Music by Paul Hegerty. VERY academic, kind of dull, incredibly small typeface but overall fairly enjoyable. I enjoyed the Merzbow/Japan chapters a lot. Overall it was not my jam.

I also read Lovecraft Country over the holidays. I enjoyed the show, thought they did a great job on the series and the book was very different and also great. I will definitely read my by Matt Ruff.

I found a used copy of Love Goes to Buildings On Fire by Will Hermes. Blazed through it, really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the formatting and all the talk of Talking Heads. Very much an enjoyable read.

Currently reading Red Country by Joe Abercrombie. #6 in the First Law series and they've all been great. I plan to finish off the short story collection and the new series he wrote this year as well.

XXX


FreakAnimalFinland

I have the old edition. It is quite unusual, as it attempts to cover all sorts of skinhead things. Therefore it may be "too much" for almost everybody. Some will be freaked out by extensive bonehead presence. Ton of nazi skin stuff there, but if you didn't have problem with THAT, then you might have when gay skins take over and you got that stuff, explicitly presented... ! Haha!
Unusually good skinhead book. Not sure how much new edition is revised?
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net