What are you reading?

[Ada Suilen 652]

Game of Thrones (I am at the third book, A Storm of Swords) and I am loving it more than the series ofc

[Hakari 282]

I love Mystery/Horror/Crime novels so right now im digging away at The Bone Mans Daughter  by Ted Dekker. Really good so far. Ted Dekker is fantastic

[Gaz 1097]

On 8/17/2016 at 2:04 PM, Ada Suilen said:

Game of Thrones (I am at the third book, A Storm of Swords) and I am loving it more than the series ofc

yar, series is just way too disorganized and have many contradictions in comparison to books. ugh, when the 6th book is going to be released? need that shit in my body ;__;

[Ada Suilen 652]

Some sources told that it will be released on 2017, but who knows it... meanwhile I will have to arrive to the fifth

[hiroki 5521]

what i ought to be reading for work..

 

 

what i'm reading..

 

 

[suji 8317]

Sick Little Monkeys: The Unauthorized Ren and Stimpy Story by Thad Komorowski

 

An incredible book to read if you wanna learn more about animation before the 90s, and the background story of Ren & Stimpy, plus the behind-the-scenes antics of John Kricsfalusi himself.

Edited September 26, 2016 by midi:nette

[Atreides 454]

Currently catching back up on the manga I Am A Hero which is a zombie apocalypse scenario (which I'm a sucker for).  I really love the art work as most of the characters don't really look too wildly anime-esque.  It's not very believable but it's pretty creepy and good.

[gekiai 231]

Blindness by Jose Saramago

 

Very sad story, may be gruesome to some, but I think it's a very accurate outlook on the human condition if everyone in the population were to become blind :')

[Euthanasia 333]

Goodbye Tsugumi – Banana Yoshimoto

 

The only thing that annoys me is that I haven't read her books earlier. c:

[Gaz 1097]

fucking finally finished Anna Karenina yesterday -__- it was good, but damn there's way too much details and non-relevant stuff.

 

gonna start Nabokov's Lolita tomorrow : >

[Hakoniwa 222]

I'm reading a book series that got recommended to me 10+ years ago by a friend and I hadn't had the chance of reading it until a few months ago. Now I (finally) have the e-books! It's a trilogy titled "Guardians of Time", by Marianne Curley.

It goes like: 1: The Named / 2: The Dark / 3: The Key.

I'm currently reading The Key, the third and last book and I'm loving it so far. The book, the whole trilogy, the characters, the storytelling, the writing style... all of it is so good. It's a YA book but a really well-done one at that. <3

 

@EuthanasiaI wish I could read some Banana Yoshimoto books too! I've heard great things about those. I should try looking for ebooks as well, I'm slowly getting used to reading books on my cellphone without my eyes falling off. If you have any recommendations... : >

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

Read Joris karl huysmans A rebours and thought it was such self-involved twaddle. I was engage by the sheer relatability of Des Esseintes' lifestyle and I quite enjoyed the trashing he gave to a good portion of classic lit. At the end pf the day however I felt it was just the author wanking for 300 pages listing his favourite bands.

 

Now reading Madame Bowary

 

[echo 547]

I'm on book three, Ruin and Rising, of The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. It's really good! If you like fantasy books you'd probably love this trilogy! Hopefully it ends in a satisfying way!

[Jigsaw9 6783]

J.G. Ballard: The Atrocity Exhibition - Weird experimental novel with the usual Ballardian sexual objectification of cars, architecture, celebrity and violence in general. Very "out there" and a bit hard to follow at first, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. You just need to remember a few key things and then let your mind wander on the surreal images (the author's added notes for the chapters help a great deal too). Pretty cool so far, all in all.

 

Kálmán Jódal: Die Liebe - The latest super-zany volume of the super-zany Serbian-Hungarian author, does not disappoint. Imagine putting pop culture, high and low art in a blender and then re-playing and re-converting everything until you get something that kinda shouldn't make sense but it somehow does, anyway. His usual rapid-fire images are abandoned here more and more in favor of something that resembles coherent story-telling too.

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

120 Days of Sodom. I've owned it for a lifetime but it had sat on the shelf ( or due to my spastic organisational habits: on the floor, table and toilet, conversely... ) until yesterday. It's an absolute riot and it boggles to mind how such a thing can be of the age that it is. While one would never realise how many seasons are behind a book like that, it's even more startling just how contemporary it remains after all that time, both in its themes open for varied interpretation ( I can't shake off Pasolini's reading of them ) and language. Must be said that it is an exhaustive reading. I'm 109 pages deep and I can scarcely keep going forward just because it's so heavy a read, despite its outrageous humor. 

 

Also reading Taschen's Van Gogh book and "Munch: Van Gogh" 

 

 

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Chuck Palahniuk: Beautiful You - Thought I'd give this one a 2nd read, mainly because I managed to finally get the Hungarian translation at a discount price (and I'm an obsessive Palahniuk collector), lol. I'm still not quite sure whether it was genius or borderline-cringey crap. It sure as hell was entertaining in a campy trashy way, that's for sure. If you throw any sense/expectation of reality out the window and just want something totally dumb and crazy (keeping in mind he prolly wrote this the way he did on purpose, i.e. kinda like an over-the-top parody), this one's gonna satisfy you. So don't look for any ~deep~ or enlightening content here. He's written much much better in the past tho.

Edited November 27, 2016 by Jigsaw9

[Flame-X 441]

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus

I finished reading this and it's got to be the best autobiography I've read in years. It's pretty much a testimony about an ex-devout Muslim, Nabeel Qureshi, describing his journey from Islam to Christianity. It's a very heart wrenching story that literally put me to tears near the last couple chapters of the book as you really come to understand the struggles he had to face. I was already engaged in the first few pages. One page in the beginning that particularity grabbed me by the heart was how this book was dedicated to his parents. These are the exact words:

Quote

Ammi and Abba, your undying for me even  when you feel I have sinned against you is second only to God's love for His children. I pray you will one day realize His love is truly unconditional, that He has offered forgiveness to us all. One that day, I pray that you would accept His redemption, so we might be a family once again. I love you with all my heart.

Just by reading that, I can already tell the book was gonna be full of sincerity and it definitely hits me. It's so honoring and beautiful. One of the things I learned from reading this book is cultural insights of 1st and 2nd generation immigrant families. It's interesting to know that religion is infused with foreign cultures that paradigms with the honor and shame system. If one family member decides to convert to a different faith/religion, that would be equivalent to betraying your family and your social circles. This was one of the greatest struggles Nabeel had to face. After reading this book, I was moved but also challenged considering my faith levels. Nabeel quest to search for the truth is truly genuine and it inspired me to pick up the bible and actually start reading it to equip myself the knowledge rather than relying on my surface levels of faith.

[Nagisa 131]

Jukai by Suzuki Koji

 

It's an anthology of 6 stories pertaining to Aokigahara. I got it because I thought it would be horror but it isn't really that. Still pretty interesting though. I do wish that he would write more horror though. The Ringu series was just amazing.

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

"Reborn - Journals & Notebooks 1947 - 1963" by Susan Sontag. A marvellous find from an English bookshop in Poland. The price incredibly enough was less than 10 euros, which is unfathomable for anything this trendy in Finland. The customer service in this country is really cold, but with these boons I'm not complaining.

[Komorebi 2193]

I'm currently reading the Musashi trilogy by Eiji Yoshikawa, they are quite entretaining.

[eiheartx 1310]

Flopcreed, the movie's book that I've got the other day.

As a huge AC fan I have zero faith in the movie, so maybe the book will be better. xD I still can't deal with the Animus arm shit (all around it is ridiculous) and the nonsense already.

The past events are set in 1491, and Aguilar had his finger cut for the hidden blade. Da Vinci modified the blade in 1476 so no more fingers to cut. No one to pass the word in the brotherhood? I mean, not losing your finger anymore sounds like a big victory to me! Or is it because Italy is soooo far away from Spain (lol)?

It's a detail but it bugs me.

Edited January 10, 2017 by eiheartx

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Finished Catch-22 by Joseph Heller a couple days ago. At times it felt quite hard to read in long bursts because of its cyclical and repetitive nature but sometimes the flow really caught me. In any case, it's both an incredibly hilarious and disturbing ride showcasing the absurdity of war. I can see how it became a classic.

 

Also recently finished The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan, lent by a friend of mine. I'm not too big on modern werewolf/vampire lit and the like, but it was good for one occasion I guess. Very easy to read, and also surprisingly quite literary/sophisticated compared to what I expected. Not too memorable though.

 

Currently in the process of finishing Friedrich Nietzsche's The Antichrist. Even though it's a relatively short piece, I can't take more than a couple pages at a time. Very demanding stuff that makes you think. I can't say I agree with everything in it, but he does raise some interesting points.

Edited January 10, 2017 by Jigsaw9

[hiroki 5521]

28 minutes ago, Jigsaw9 said:

Currently in the process of finishing Friedrich Nietzsche's The Antichrist. Even though it's a relatively short piece, I can't take more than a couple pages at a time. Very demanding stuff that makes you think. I can't say I agree with everything in it, but he does raise some interesting points.

 

ooo Nietzsche. this probably wouldn't matter at all if you're just reading him for leisure, but The Antichrist  was one of his last works (written a year before he lost his mind) - which means it can be a little overwhelming since it builds on lot of his central concerns articulated in previous books. a better place to start might be Beyond Good and Evil  (especially the preface) or Genealogy of Morality then work your way backwards before returning to his mature works. other works like The Birth of Tragedy are self-contained and can be read as a standalone.

 

just a suggestion if you have a more-than-passing interest in his thought!

 

 

On 11/15/2016 at 10:55 PM, Disposable said:

Also reading Taschen's Van Gogh book and "Munch: Van Gogh" 

 

 

literally just saw this. Taschen's hardcovers are one of the best gifts ever to art history. the quality of these beauties put academic presses and corporate presses everywhere to shame. they are seriously even better produced than some catalogues raisonnés i have come across in university libraries. i cannot recommend them enough

 

Edited January 10, 2017 by hiroki

[Jigsaw9 6783]

^ Thanks for the Nietzsche suggestion! To be honest, I only picked this up because there was a discount on it, lol (and cuz I've always wanted to read something by him). But yeah, I've read up on him a bit and it does seem to be one of his heavier works.

[Karma’s Hat 3107]

@hiroki @Jigsaw9

 

 Coincidentally my favorite is the Birth of Tragedy. His take-no-prisoners writing style is a great influence and that book is endlessly quotable. I have the great benefit of not being very intellectually concise, so I absorb everything I read with great measure and seeing the world with the theoretical framework of that book in mind is tremendeously entertaining. It also somehow forever convinced me to not like Virgil ( ??? )