What are you reading?

[Kong Wen]

As far as my Sharecrow-sickness goes, here are the books I ordered today:

Theodor W. Adorno's The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture
Theodor W. Adorno & Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment
Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation
Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle
Herbert Marcuse's One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society

These are some awesome works of culture studies' "greatest hits" that I chewed up in graduate school, but I somehow avoided owning my own copies (even though the late fees I paid to the library would probably have bought these for me...). So it'll be good to have copies I can write all over.

[Jelly]

After hearing about True Detectives' supposed plagiarism of the author Thomas Ligotti, I wanted to read something that he had written.

I read the short story The Red Tower, and while it might not have anything to do with True Detective, I enjoyed it.
It's an unnerving description of wicked and strange place from an unknown sender. I like the horror-from-description style of this author. Descriptions can be scarier than actions.

You can read it here: http://weirdfictionreview.com/2011/12/t ... s-ligotti/

I now really wish that I had read Poe and HP Lovecraft so I could compare it to this piece.

[Sharecrow]

Okay, I'm likely going to end up double-posting because I am just about done with another book, but I couldn't wait. I just finished The Immortality Factor by Ben Bova. I've read several of his books before and they ranged from great to good. This one, though, raised the bar significantly on how I feel about his writing. It was just stunning from the beginning to the end. The book is set in the near-future (or the present with some liberties) where scientists are trying to figure out how to regenerate organs and etc without doing any surgery. If your heart is going out, grow a new one in your chest and let it take over. The body grew one in utero in the first place, so the thinking is that you can stimulate that specific regeneration that is needed in a patient and let it occur naturally. I approached this book with skepticism because I thought it was high-risk for being corny or obvious - I thought it would be tough for an author to resist being clumsy or stupid with a subject matter like that and actually create a strong and compelling novel at an artistic level. Ben Bova pulled it off, though. I bought it on Kindle just because I had scored a leather-bound, signed copy of it and was wondering what the book was like and how I felt about it. Well, now I can honestly say that this my favorite novel. Really. Well done.

A long time ago, The Count of Monte Cristo was my first favorite novel. It got trumped by Journey to the End of the Night years later. The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis has been my favorite for years and years (was almost trumped by The Art of Fielding but not quite). A new book has that throne now, though.

I'm tickled pink that I have a signed one.

I already miss the characters.

[Sharecrow]

Here is my predicted double-post.

I just finished Cain, the second posthumously published novel by Jose Saramago. It told the tale of Cain, who, as we know, murdered his brother Abel as described in the book of Genesis. Jose follows Cain as he wanders throughout time and space through various stories in the Old Testament, witnessing the events himself and struggling with God and His purpose and His methods. They are very human questions and Jose approaches them in his typical whimsical, direct, and creative manner. This was a delightful little book and I enjoyed the heck out of it despite the occasionally uncomfortable breaches the author makes in his discussion about God and our relationship with Him.

I'll leave you with a quote:
"The history of mankind is the history of our misunderstandings with god, for he doesn't understand us, and we don't understand him."

Next up: Jack London's The Sea Wolf.

[The Shoemaker]

The Immortality Factor

I think I might check it out. I read a little synopsis of it by the author and it certainly sounds intreging.

I finished A Clash of Kings last month, and I enjoyed it very much. It managed to set itself apart from the first book very well, with the theme of this book being all about conniving. It was very well done in how it was written, with Tyrion's sections again being the highlight with how witty he is. Each character had their own plan and it was really interesting to see who was able to out smart the other. The book started out slow, it probably could've had a few less chapters, but it was always enjoyable none the less.

I've started A Storm of Swords now, the third book in the series. Again, taking a little break from reading just like last time but I'm sure I will return to it soon.

[Kreegs]

Finished Batman the Long Halloween. Just got Watchmen in the mail from Amazon. Going to give that a go.

[Kong Wen]

I guess I never posted here after finishing Tai-Pan. I finished Tai-Pan a week ago or so! Excellent book. I didn't like it quite as much as Shōgun, but it was still excellent. It's been haunting my thoughts ever since I finished... I think I need to recover for a while before I dare to dig into Gai-Jin.

[Kiwi the Tortoise]

Currently: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville

One of the review quotes on the back cover should have been a warning.
"A work of exhaustive inventiveness..." and it is exhausting alright.
The scenario is filled with bizarre creatures and other elements clustered together, from Cactus-people to characters that seem to be a crossbreed between The Rotten (of Dark Souls 2) and a Shoggoth, but what makes it exhausting are the descriptions that rather focus on how 'it' makes the current protagonist feel, instead of explaining what 'it' actually looks like.
However I may yet continue to read it to the end. While it took quite a while to get going, I am now interested enough that I want to see where this goes.

And thus I did read it to the very end.
I still find it exhaustive and while the ending had a neat twist, I feel the payoff was a bit limited.

Afterwards I went for something simpler and read Robert Asprin's "Another Fine Myth" and "Myth Conceptions".
While reading I noticed that I found the entire thing strangely familiar and remembered reading about these books roughly a score ago.
The basic premise: Skeeve, a magicians apprentice, is forced to join forces with a demon from the realm of Perv (pervert jokes inbound!) who was stripped of his powers. So it is basically comedic fantasy and works as such. Compared to my previous read this is relaxing and thankfully moves quick to the point. Charming and simple.

Now I switched over to the Mars Chronicles by Edgar Rice Burroughs, after sitting through 20min of that pretty abyssmal John Carter movie I kinda wanted to see where this is coming from. Just a few chapters in and I think I found the main problem, John Carter himself. In the books the entire tale is his memoires and thus we share his thoughts and point-of-view. As he is rather stoic however, there is nothing left of this in the movie. He is just, this guy without distinct personality. Will see how this one goes as I continue reading.

[VictorViper]

I read A Princess of Mars a couple of years back (around the time the movie released - got it for peanuts) and I have to admit to mostly enjoying the book. The flick was lifeless by contrast. Not to mention the borderline-cuddly Green Martians. You're right that without Carter's stoic, introspective character on display, he becomes just a puppet hero for set-pieces.

[The Shoemaker]

I finished A Storm of Swords a couple weeks back, it was very, very good. Perhaps like the previous book a bit too long though. I appreciated the amount of detail put in, there were some chapters that really dragged. The last 300 pages were fantastic though, constant battles and plot twists and what have you. The book also had an extra scene not covered in the show so far that gave me chills.

I've moved on to A Feast For Crows now, a book the show hasn't touched at all yet (for the most part). Initially it was hard to get into because the first three chapters or so are on entirely new characters, but now I'm all for those chapters and the book is starting to pick up. Oddly the book doesn't include the three most popular characters from the series; Tyrion, Danny and Job Snow. This book came out 5 years after the last book which ended on some serious cliffhangers for at least two of the three characters. Apparently the next book includes those characters, but that came out 5 years after this one. I can't imagine waiting 10 years to find out what happened to your favourite characters