What are you reading right now?

[Shadfan666xxx000]

Artoria is a fucking tranny and deserves the noose.

Xir name is Altria, thank you.

 

[Shadfan666xxx000]

Double posting now: I've just got done with Tristan and Iseult. That needs a whole TV series about it. A good writer could fill in all sorts of gaps with it and that seems to be the intent. Now, I'm reading some hard-core academic stuff

Spoiler: Spoiler

It's got an interesting preface so far. Let's see where it goes.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

Finished up collecting the rest of the Dune books that were written and authorized by Frank Herbert. Meanwhile, I still have yet to properly watch the recent adaptation of Dune.

 

[glass_houses]

"Afterwards" by Rosamund Lipton. Chick thriller. I've ended up forcing myself to continue it by putting it in the loo. I enjoyed Lipton's earlier book "Sister" but this one really is proving difficult to get into. Not to mention that I'm less than a quarter in and I'm pretty certain who dunnit. I don't mind a little sentiment but so far the prose is cloying and the omniscient narrator is incredibly aggravating. The main character and her daughter are both in a coma, but they can go literally anywhere in the hospital and see everything, and she has a husband who's perfect in every way, he's even a celebrity but he's devoted to her only... I'm hoping that things improve soon.

Putting it in the loo wasn't helping, so I said, "Fuck it" and flipped through it, just reading random paragraphs that caught my attention. I was exactly right on whodunit. The style did not improve and it remained a cloying, pretentious mess to the very end.

Yeah, I'm not reading this author again.

 

[Angry Mug]

Dracula, Bram Stoker.

Honestly thought I was going to hate it as vampires in the current era are pretty shitty. But this book has been a legitimate fun time.

 

[skykiii]

So I dropped James Clavell's Shogun because it was getting boring. I've compared his writing to Stephen King already--a needless focus on gross or base elements (some of them are justified to illustrate the east vs west culture clash) but also.... every fucking character has like their own stupid little sub-story. If the book were edited down to just the parts about the western sailor who is forced to adapt to Asian culture it would be much more readable, but there's entire chapters full of some intricacies about the social life of some Japanese person who I doubt is gonna play a role later.

And a lot of the details are just.... "why?" Like there's a brief mention of a Japanese prostitute deciding to fake her privates hurting so that "the other girls will have something to talk about."

Also once again, I doubt the accuracy of Clavell's portrayal of Japan. One tic I notice is these guys end almost every other sentence with "neh?" I know that happens in anime but not to THIS fucking degree--here its almost like its a requirement.

Apparently when the TV miniseries adaptation aired in Japan, it actually offended people because of the stuff it got wrong.

(I'm not saying all this as a weeb, by the way, although having gone through a weeb phase sure does not help).

..........

So I decided to revisit a different series that I remember liking a lot more, but never finishing.

That other series also has characters with a strange catch phrase: "You can check me to the tenth decimal point on that!"

It's Doc Smith's Lensman saga, if you didn't catch the hint.

 

[glass_houses]

Rereading The Man Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett. Cracking great read, I don't know why I only have this one book of his. It's interesting to note that while he was the embodiment of Satan in today's terms- he was one of the British colonialists in British India- he writes with considerable respect for the natives and customs of every part of India that he travelled to, and grieved considerably for both the victims of the man eaters, and the man eaters themselves.

I've also started Suffer the Little Children by Barbara Davis. I've read and watched a metric fuckton of true crime in my life, but this one is seriously getting to me. I don't know why, but I'm barely a quarter in and I want to claw my own skin off. The monster in question is Jesse James Cummings and he's 'only' been linked to two murders, but for some reason this account is really freaking me out. I don't know if I can finish this book tbh

 

[An Ghost]

Steppenwolfe review:

 

[cold comfort]

I read The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, by Brian P. Levack. Very well-organized and easy to follow, it lays out the various causes of the witch-hunts between 1450 and 1750. It argues that there were two necessary preconditions: new ideas about witches (that they made a pact with the devil) and new judicial developments (a new type of criminal procedure which facilitated prosecutions, the use of torture, and secular jurisdiction over the witch trials). Added to that, the more immediate causes are to be found in religious, social, and economic circumstances and tensions. It also goes into why there were pronounced regional differences in intensity, and how the witch-hunts came to an end.

The last chapter is on later instances of witch-hunts and it talks about how Africans were (and are) still lynching witches in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Apparently the witch-hunts there became more frequent during colonial rule because the Europeans tried to end them, which the Africans took as an insult to their beliefs and traditions. And then it got even worse when they gained independence and the restraint imposed by the Europeans fell away. Interesting.

There were also some neat engravings and woodcuts included:

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I finished Roadwork. I'm disappointed in a strange way, because there was nothing wrong with the book - it was actually generally quite good - but it didn't really keep my attention well. I feel like I'd have gotten a lot more out of it if I'd read it like I should, every night until done, instead of with big gaps. I thought the characterization was very good. Repetitive at times but in a way that felt deliberate, like for emphasis.

It makes an interesting comparison to the movie Falling Down.

 

[Nicanor]

I’m listening to Trainspotting on Audible. Very thick Scottish accents but it’s fairly entertaining so far.

 

[IDanceonTrannyGraves]

I just started Legend of the Galactic Heroes Vol. 3

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

Just got done reading the most recently released book in Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, a fantasy series by the same guy as Monster Hunter International.

The title makes it sound generic, but it's actually pretty damn interesting. It's set in a late-medieval world governed by a pseudo-religious ideology called The Law. Except that it's rigidly caste based and militantly atheistic. There's an Inquisition, but it exists to enforce caste and root out belief in gods. Humans live on the land, but the sea is infested with demons, which are absurdly dangerous. Water is considered unclean, especially salt water, and the capital city is considered pure because it's in the middle of the desert.

It's a rather cool and unique setting.

 

[AmboyCafe]

I'm in the middle of reading the nightlords ominous, it's the 2nd time. But it's been years. Aaron does a great job making bad guys really relatable

 

[SailingtheSaltySeas]

Going to start on “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, I remember really liking this book when I read it back in highschool so hopefully it holds up.

 

[Muttley]

way of kings

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

So I dropped James Clavell's Shogun because it was getting boring. I've compared his writing to Stephen King already--a needless focus on gross or base elements (some of them are justified to illustrate the east vs west culture clash) but also.... every fucking character has like their own stupid little sub-story. If the book were edited down to just the parts about the western sailor who is forced to adapt to Asian culture it would be much more readable, but there's entire chapters full of some intricacies about the social life of some Japanese person who I doubt is gonna play a role later.

And a lot of the details are just.... "why?" Like there's a brief mention of a Japanese prostitute deciding to fake her privates hurting so that "the other girls will have something to talk about."

That's called having DETAIL and DEPTH you fucking swine.

But if you don't like it you just don't like it. I thought Shogun was a masterpiece, fascinating from beginning to end. If you don't like the prose and plot then there isn't any reason to finish it.

Also once again, I doubt the accuracy of Clavell's portrayal of Japan. One tic I notice is these guys end almost every other sentence with "neh?" I know that happens in anime but not to THIS fucking degree--here its almost like its a requirement.

Apparently when the TV miniseries adaptation aired in Japan, it actually offended people because of the stuff it got wrong.

It's extremely accurate in the sense of little details and touches and big ideas, but sometimes he just makes shit up. Clavell overly exoticizes the Japanese. One particularly bad case of it is that he claims (both in Shogun of the Japanese and Tai-Pan of the Chinese) that they have no concept/word equivalent to European romantic love (complete bullshit and actually backwards in spirit, the Japanese have a much more sophisticated vocabulary for it). In a similar spirit he claims at some point that Japanese peasant women only have descriptive names (like you associate with Indians, the name translates to something). He uses that to make it out like the Japanese view people like objects, but it's not fucking true in the first place.

In general, his Asian Saga has this theme of portraying Asia like a scary, bizarre alien world. He takes real history and cultures and then presents it in a way that makes it feel like fantasy. Gary Jennings did similar brilliant work with Mesoamerica in Aztec (you wouldn't like it either, it's deranged, violent and perverted).

Something to keep in mind is that Clavell was stuck in a Japanese internment camp. Like many men of his generation he had a fascination with Orientals but was fascinated in the manner that a person would be fascinated by an alien and seemed to believe they had an inherently monstrous, cruel and mysterious nature. I think that it's like reading something like Margaret Mitchell in that as long as you understand and accept that going in it isn't really a problem.

 

[Kiwi & Cow]

I'm reading this:

 

[VanyaMotorbike]

I'm reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. It's a long series of series of notes from this former Roman Emperor, life lessons he learnt from his influences and experiences. I had read some random quotes from this book to the effect of stop caring about what people think of you and focus only on yourself and your actions which is definitely something I struggle with irl, and so I bought the book. It shouldn't surprise me I guess, but it's a pleasant feeling to read this book and see that the same kind of people and values and experiences existed back then and its teachings still apply to modern life. He was very observant and appreciative of the good in people around him, open to learning from them but also wary and dismissive of negative influences. It is an interesting read so far

 

[Mister Baranavichy]

I'm almost finishing the most worthless waste of digital space I've ever had the displeasure of touching - "Nothing but blackened teeth"

I had hopes I finally found a good horror book by the look of the cover and the summary at the back, but holy shit was this a complete waste of 2 hours - Imagine grabbing the concept of a Chinese mansion that needs consistent sacrifices to feed the dying warmth of the dead, dead who can never feel anything so need to leech off the energy of the living, and having them be represented by the amazing cover variations, and scooby-doing that premise with the most sjw stereotypical characters imaginable - I shit you not, it has the "Brainless Jock that has sex with his friend's wife"; "Spineless fat retard who is a beta to his abusive wife"; "Strong black wife who cheated on the beta cuck with jock and knows how to read minds because woman power";" Rich marvel tier "Erm, that just happened" Chinese guy that predicts the plot"; and the worst character of them all, a "depressed, live is meaningless soy woman main character, obese of course, shut in, meant to be a self-insert of the writer".

At no point did it get better, legit thought this was a parody of horror books, but the more I read, the more I realize this author who writes mostly just horror, is just shit at writing.