What are you reading right now?

[Cheerlead-in-Chief]

This is a really good multi-layered work with a lot of re-readability. Probably most people read this first when they're at an age they can sympathize with the Underground Man but slowly, you realize if this guy actually existed he would probably be an above-average redditor.

I actually think Dostoyevsky's short works were better than his long works. "The Overcoat" (by Gogol) is another great story that somewhat reminds me of Underground.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that I was in a slighly foul mood and thought that "Hey, this can be appropriate to accompany my mood!"
To think that a mention from a Jungian Psychology YouTube Channel Eternalised would lead me to such a neat literary rabbit hole.
Oh, that fable? I wanna read it too because of Atrocity Guide's documentary on the artist couple; then again I'm not surprised that a long and storied History like Russia would produce interesting literature!

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

I am reading The Hobbit again. Tolkien writes good.

 

[Boy_Blunder]

I'm doing anything to put off reading more of Robinson Crusoe, which has to be one of the most boring books I've ever picked up.
I reread Virtual Light and Idoru by William Gibson and I think that Idoru isn't as good the second time around. I also read The Colorado Kid and I get that the point of the story is that it isn't a story, and there isn't a resolution, but that hasn't stopped me from coming up with a couple that fit the world of the story. Like, the two old newspapermen are inventing it as a test/lesson for Stephanie, or The Colorado Kid got blorbed into an alternate timeline, both of which explain the impossibilities like going to Blockbuster in the 70s.

 

[BlackWaterSails]

I just recently finished The Diary of a Rapist by Evan S. Connell. It was pretty good and interesting. I love books that focus on one character and explores dark subjects, so it was a quality read. I recommend it but only if you don't mind a lot of sexism towards women, the sexualization of minors, murders, and, obviously, descriptions of hunting victims and rapes.

 

[DarkSydeHyde]

I recommend it but only if you don't mind a lot of sexism towards women, obviously descriptions of hunting victims, murders and rapes.

Well, do you really think that sexism is a surprise in the story about a rapist?

 

[BlackWaterSails]

Well, do you really think that sexism is a surprise in the story about a rapist?

Fair point. Though, he could be a guy raping guys. In a story like that, misogyny may be a surprise.

 

[Berwick]

Everything I want to do is Illegal by Joel Salatin. You'd expect a book with a title like that to be written by some rebellious teenager, but no, it has to do with the extreme bureaucracy the author has experienced first hand in the farming business, having to get permits and licenses for every little thing imaginable.

 

[shameful existence]

I've been traveling a bit since the spring and have gone through a pile of "lighter" books. The only one that stood out to me was Dan Simmons' Terror. The lost Franklin expedition is a fascinating rabbit hole by itself and the time this guy must have spent collecting the scattered details about its mystery made it into quite a masterpiece, though a heartbreaking one. He put a fictional twist on it, but respected the known facts so well it's also one of the "this could have happened" stories. I've read a bunch of critical reviews on it and it seems to me like they all come from people who are not interested in polar exploration and picked this book as some sort of a horror story - which it is not.

 

[AnOminous]

The lost Franklin expedition is a fascinating rabbit hole by itself and the time this guy must have spent collecting the scattered details about its mystery made it into quite a masterpiece, though a heartbreaking one.

You know, if I were going on a highly dangerous expedition, I'd name my ships something a little more cheerful than Terror and Erebus, a part of Hell.

 

[shameful existence]

You know, if I were going on a highly dangerous expedition, I'd name my ships something a little more cheerful than Terror and Erebus, a part of Hell.

They did well in the Antarctic. Shortly before the Franklin expedition, they even upgraded them with steam engines and iron plating which we can still admire... at the bottom of the sea.

 

[Commander X]

Indigo by noted crime fiction and mystery author Loren Estleman, the sixth in his light-hearted but definitely not "cozy" mysteries starring Valentino. A film archivist at UCLA, Valentino is a movie buff devoted to preserving vintage and rare films which sometimes gets him into trouble.

Valentino meets with the wealthy Ignacio Bozal at his estate - a walled off family compound in East LA of all places - to take in the man's latest generous donation to the UCLA Film Department. Better even than rare movie stills, it's the only print of Bleak Street, a (fictional) 1957 film noir produced during the noir cycle's last legs by the (real-life) RKO Studios in it's twilight era. It was going to be the first role for it's star Van Oliver, playing a gangster based on Bugsy Siegel and his supposedly totally naturalistic performance might have helped it revolutionize the crime film - had he not vanished during post-production and the studio cut their losses. Oliver supposedly had mob ties back in NYC and worked for Mickey Cohen. It was believed he had run afoul of his employers.

Anyways, film preservation back then for a movie that was shelved? Forget it. Somehow a copy has ended up in Bozal's hands.

Bozal turned and took a pizza-size film can off a steel utility rack. “Ever hear of a mug named Van Oliver?”

The abrupt question surprised Valentino. Plainly the old man had little patience for small talk. “Old-time picture actor. He was murdered, supposedly. Another one of Hollywood’s unsolved mysteries.”

His host jerked his chin, approving. Aged and slight as he was—his gold Rolex and cuff links looked too heavy for his fragile wrists—all his movements were steady and his eyes bright as a bird’s. “That’s refreshing. Most people don’t know Van Oliver from Oliver Hardy.”

“We can’t all be buffs. Most people wouldn’t know him. He only made one movie, and it—” He stopped, looking at the can. He felt the old familiar thrill.

Bozal’s smile was wicked. It was the privilege of rich men to carry suspense to the brink of cruelty. “Officially, he just disappeared. My bet is they buried him up in the hills, or rowed him out past Catalina and dumped him overboard in a cement overcoat. In those days, you couldn’t convict anyone of murder in the state of California without a corpse. I guess the law didn’t want to fry someone just because someone else decided to take a powder and forgot to tell anyone, but it sure sold a lot of shovels and quicklime.”

“It was almost a double murder, if you can apply the term to a movie studio,” said Valentino. “He’d been getting the kind of star treatment they reserve for major properties: elocution lessons, tailors, a big flashy car, dates with glamour queens, and an army of press agents, so he could make a splash during interviews and premieres. Only he couldn’t, because he died before the film was released. They shelved it. That was the end of RKO.”

“Helped by that nut Howard Hughes. Sooner or later he drove everything he owned into the ground. You can’t keep hiring and firing and quadrupling budgets and stay in business. Lucy told me the best day in her life was the day she bought the studio, four years after RKO fired her.”

“You knew Lucille Ball?”

“Through Desi. In those days the Spanish colony in Hollywood was thick as thieves.”

Valentino is won over by a screening in Bozal's private theater, and Oliver's performance was definitely the keystone.

"All that Actors Studio bunk would’ve stunk like cheap aftershave next to the real deal. That’s why I buy into all that hype about mob connections. You don’t pick up that stuff mawking over your little dog getting run over when you were six.”

Valentino can't wait for UCLA to arrange a screening, but the university's publicity man wants a bigger hook to promote the movie with besides it being a long lost classic few have heard of. How about digging up some fresh dirt on what happened to the star?

“I can’t promise much, Henry. Bleak Street was shelved in post-production, before the publicity mill could warm up. All I’ve got is rumors and some inside stories Bozal overheard. Without corroboration, they’re useless. The public isn’t as ignorant of hype as it was sixty years ago; it wants sensation—dirt, to be blunt. You’ve got a star with possibly sinister connections who dropped off the face of the earth just as the underworld was consolidating the power it drew from Prohibition. A pro like you could build a campaign as tall as the Watts Tower on a foundation like that. What else could you possibly need?”

...

“That’s prologue, the kind of stuff they used to blow off in whatchacall expository text after the title card and the bill. Nobody goes to the movies to read, for Pete’s sake. They want faces, sex, action, the bloodier the better. Forget the on-set baloney. Find somebody who was there and make ’em dish up.”

“You’re forgetting how long ago this was. Whatever happened to Oliver has found its way to everyone else connected with the picture. There’s no hit man like Old Father Time.

It's a real comedic romp through vintage Hollywood and rich in detail about the whole film noir cycle but Estleman is also nothing if not a true mystery plotter and the solution is quite surprising.

 

[Buttz McSmellington]

I had to stop reading Monster Hunter International because the author reminded me too much of Chris.

Spoiler: Larry Correia vs. Chris Chan

I'm going to read the latest book from Lindqvist instead.

 

[Jewthulhu]

I had to stop reading Monster Hunter International because the author reminded me too much of Chris.

Spoiler: Larry Correia vs. Chris Chan

View attachment 3438855View attachment 3438854

I'm going to read the latest book from Lindqvist instead.

The writing is clunky and bad in general, it really does feel like an autist wrote it even if I agree that a civilian should be able to own a full auto weapon without restrictions.

 

[Fortunato Brown]

View attachment 3436487
I've been traveling a bit since the spring and have gone through a pile of "lighter" books. The only one that stood out to me was Dan Simmons' Terror. The lost Franklin expedition is a fascinating rabbit hole by itself and the time this guy must have spent collecting the scattered details about its mystery made it into quite a masterpiece, though a heartbreaking one. He put a fictional twist on it, but respected the known facts so well it's also one of the "this could have happened" stories. I've read a bunch of critical reviews on it and it seems to me like they all come from people who are not interested in polar exploration and picked this book as some sort of a horror story - which it is not.

You're probably right that one has to be interested in the expedition more. Which I was, but I definitely got fatigued with the book about 3/4rds of the way through and never finished nor really have much desire to finish. I used to like Dan Simmons a lot but I've become quite tired with the way he frequently eats up a lot of pages with exposition which is interesting but exhaustingly done and could use some more selectivity.

You know, if I were going on a highly dangerous expedition, I'd name my ships something a little more cheerful than Terror and Erebus, a part of Hell.

The reason is they were both originally warships that were refitted for the expedition. Terror was actually involved in the War of 1812 as I recall.

 

[Kerr Avon]

The Harry McCoy series by Alan Parks. Scottish policing during the early '70s so far.

The only thing that grates is the apparent need to make sure we know Catholics are nonces every so often.

Better than McIlvanneys son's shit.

 

[Norbert the Tiger]

Last week I finished Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I cannot say it is complete trash as there are a handful of lines I underlined as being well written, interesting thoughts, but I am not sure it can be rightly called a novel or literature at all. I would call it anti-literature, and an anti-novel. He declares several times that his purpose is to unsettle, unnerve, that the artist's purpose is to create chaos. I disagree.

The book has historical importance as it was banned for 30 plus years for using the word "cunt" liberally. I see little reason why it is regarded as an important literary work of the 20th century, That it is just convinces me of America's cultural and moral bankruptcy. It does reference examining a woman's vagina with a flashlight so hyper licentiousness and perversity is further documented as a corollary of liberal democracy, at least as facilitated by the United States.

I will also say that I had wanted to read it since watching Henry and June, which I had not seen since I was in high school (a long time ago). I liked it then but imagine if I watched it now I would think it is trash. I tried reading Anais Nin''s Delta of Venus and reads like the efforts from some edgy middle school girl whose midwit intellect leads her to think she is a genius. These two books further convince me that 20th century art, literatue and so on is so often much more about the personalities involved than the actual artistic merit of the work. An author or artists receives accalim and then the social proof and hive mentality carries them the rest of the way....

Now I am reading Bram Stroker's Dracula. The first sixty or seventy pages of Harker's journal while in captivity at Dracula's castle were riveting. The prose is typical of Victorian British literature--beautiful, erudite, and eloquent. I am dragging a bit now that it has gome to letters from the women in Britian etc. I have to put in some reading time tonight.

 

[LoFi_Bandit]

Just finished The Dying Earth by Jack Vance. Best summed up as sword and sorcery-meets-sci fi in the distant future as our sun is about to go supernova.

Going to start The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad next.

 

[pork and beans]

Finished Milan Kundera's The joke some weeks ago, i really enjoyed it though I prefer his later works more (Immortality and The unbearable lightness of being for example)
I've started Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting and I am really enjoying the humor and the vivid language, as well as the narration, though i'm sure it will get much more bleak because of the drugs and it being transgressive fiction and all.

I 'm also reading Dune; i'm on chapter 42 and so far it's really engaging and fun, which I didnt expect because I'm not a big science fiction person at all.

I'm close to finishing Aurora Roja, a book by Spanish writer Pio Baroja from the Generation of 98. Its the conclusion of a trilogy but you can read it on its own and its a novel around the anarchist movement that was so popular in Spain at the time. I enjoy his down to earth and reflexive writing style, but It's dragging on a bit; he wasn't kidding when he said El arbol de la ciencia was by far his best novel.

Some months I started La regenta , important realist spanish novel... but I haven't picked it up since. It's a slow start and I got bored.

 

[plgfarts]

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy. A damn fine book so far.

I'm going to try to talk my band into naming our next album "The Crimes of the Moonlight Melonmounter".

 

[ulsterscotsman]

The Yowie: In Search of Australia's Bigfoot.

Not exactly highbrow intellectual type shit but I enjoy this type of stuff.