What are you reading right now?

I am about to start reading "Horns".

I watched the movie many years ago and absolutely loved the concept but I didn't think it was executed well. That or I could not break the connection of Daniel/Harry.

Looking forward to it, I hope it is a decent read.

Trying to get myself back into reading, but I wore myself out a few years ago after joining a book club and being forced to read one too many poorly written girl boss thrillers.
 
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"1984" by George Orwell.

I'm in shock, friends. This is the scariest book I've ever read. Yes, yes, Stephen King isn't scary after that, because, unlike his books, Orwell's world is true, and that's what makes it scary.
Humans, they are such gentle creatures that anything can be done to them. Man is weak, and when he is hurt and scared, he is capable of any betrayal, even betrayal of himself. Especially if he knows that he can't get rid of this fear and this pain by dying.
Excellent book, the best I've read this year.
A fantastic dystopia written in 1949.
"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength."
This is how the book begins, and immerses us in the world of the totalitarian state in which the main character lives. A world where people are deprived of their own opinion and the right to express it. A world where the task of power is to hurt and humiliate, where power is not a means, but an end. And that goal is power itself.
 
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Been reading this fanfic cross-over between Pathfinder and Berserk called Apotheosis. It's pretty good. Though the writer goes wild with power-levels. It feels like a super robot anime at times.
 
danielmeyers said:
"1984" by George Orwell.

I'm in shock, friends. This is the scariest book I've ever read. Yes, yes, Stephen King isn't scary after that, because, unlike his books, Orwell's world is true, and that's what makes it scary.
Humans, they are such gentle creatures that anything can be done to them. Man is weak, and when he is hurt and scared, he is capable of any betrayal, even betrayal of himself. Especially if he knows that he can't get rid of this fear and this pain by dying.
Excellent book, the best I've read this year.
A fantastic dystopia written in 1949.
"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength."
This is how the book begins, and immerses us in the world of the totalitarian state in which the main character lives. A world where people are deprived of their own opinion and the right to express it. A world where the task of power is to hurt and humiliate, where power is not a means, but an end. And that goal is power itself.
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You sound like a redditor
 
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Beyond the North Wind by Chrisopher McIntosh.

I just started it, on the 3rd chapter. I kind of misunderstood what I was buying when I saw it, I can't lie. I thought it was going to be about how Greek mythology of hyperborea got mixed with more northern mythologies and evolved from there. I always found hyperborea as a concept to be really interesting as it essentially was the wild lands to the north and as exploration pushed further north, Hyperborea just moved along with it. It's an almost romantic notion of exploration to me, "just on the other side of this mountain there will be a land of giants."

The book itself takes a very frank stance of Hyperborea and cites it as a lost civilization, although the author is peddling this in a softer tone. I suppose in the same manner I see hyperborea as a mysterious land of trolls and gold, the author takes the stance that it's not actually trolls and gold and it's a nu-eden, the Numenor of the human race.

My only problem is my stand point is from 3000 years ago, an age where every 100 miles from the Mediterranean the people were thought to get more and more savage and it's a grand adventure to explore the "North". The authors standpoint is from 2022 (2019 when the book is written) and clearly we already know how the exploration of the North has gone, and that is hard for me to come to terms with.
 
More of the unpublished late-in-life writings by Tolkien. I got cooler on his legendarium for a while, but it seems like some of the problems I had with the story and world, or at least things that I felt could've been improved, were things Tolkien also thought could be improved and was trying to work on before his death, like the world being round from the start, Melkor and Sauron being much more powerful, Orcs coming from both Men and Elves, and other stuff. Some important and minor details that overall make his world better to me.
 
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"A People That Shall Dwell Alone"

Jewish sociology/group evolutionary theory. 1st book in MacDonald's triology forming a basis for understanding what makes jews act the way they do.

www.barnesandnoble.com

A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples|Paperback

Discover A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples by Kevin B. MacDonald and millions of other books available at Barnes & Noble. Shop paperbacks, eBooks, and more!
www.barnesandnoble.com www.barnesandnoble.com
 
danielmeyers said:
"1984" by George Orwell.

I'm in shock, friends. This is the scariest book I've ever read. Yes, yes, Stephen King isn't scary after that, because, unlike his books, Orwell's world is true, and that's what makes it scary.
Humans, they are such gentle creatures that anything can be done to them. Man is weak, and when he is hurt and scared, he is capable of any betrayal, even betrayal of himself. Especially if he knows that he can't get rid of this fear and this pain by dying.
Excellent book, the best I've read this year.
A fantastic dystopia written in 1949.
"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength."
This is how the book begins, and immerses us in the world of the totalitarian state in which the main character lives. A world where people are deprived of their own opinion and the right to express it. A world where the task of power is to hurt and humiliate, where power is not a means, but an end, as they say best online essay writers on https://writemypapers4me.net/essay-writing-service/. And that goal is power itself.
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Orwell's totalitarian world is simply disgusting, and disgusting in the first place because our world may eventually become the same. It's a lot about politics, about society in general, about the relationships between people. It reveals the very essence of man, what he will really be like when he is nailed to the wall.
 
º¿º™ said:
"A People That Shall Dwell Alone"

Jewish sociology/group evolutionary theory. 1st book in MacDonald's triology forming a basis for understanding what makes jews act the way they do.

www.barnesandnoble.com

A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples|Paperback

Discover A People That Shall Dwell Alone: Judaism as a Group Evolutionary Strategy, with Diaspora Peoples by Kevin B. MacDonald and millions of other books available at Barnes & Noble. Shop paperbacks, eBooks, and more!
www.barnesandnoble.com www.barnesandnoble.com
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I think I'll read it too, judging by the reviews, it's a good trilogy.
 
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I finished The Camp of the Saints.

As prose it's very good, excellent use of metaphors and poetic style. The author has a great way of talking about a subject without talking about it directly. It reads in a unique way. It's translated from French, so much of that has to be credited to the translator more than to Raspail. The plot itself is a lot more sluggish - it's just a huge build-up, and then by the time it finally came I was having trouble caring - but the prose was worth the price of entry.

The rest of the book is upsetting. I had known of its reputation for a long time due to it being popular in the Alt-Right, but people really undersold how hateful it is. Now, the book is unpleasant in two ways, and both make it an object of interest. The first is that its unpleasant like dystopian literature is supposed to be, but it is also unpleasant in how the author's nasty attitude gives the whole thing this gross, psychopathic air. Before starting it I had just given up on Blood Meridian, a book that's supposed to be about man's evil, and this felt much more in line with that theme than Cormac McCarthy did.

I don't know what immigration policy in 1970s Europe looked like. I assume they had some coming in. I know Neo-Malthusianism was big at the time, and constant scares over environmental problems, and the troubles of decolonization, so I assume Raspail was probably influenced in a lot of ways more by that than he was by the kinds of concerns that drive the modern world. In some ways he gets it very right, and in some ways he gets it very wrong. The depictions of media manipulation and the preachers and charities coming in to help the ships along, and the general worthlessness of the West, and a lot of the self-flagellation and all that, 100% spot on nails the modern Latino caravans and the "Syrian" swarms into Europe. But Raspail has this fixation on South Asia that, in hindsight, is absurd given that Muslim jihadists - rather White looking ones from the Near East - would wind up being a much larger threat.

The big problem I have with Raspail is that he writes about non-Whites like they're literal monsters. He has this disgusting air of elitism where you can tell he has no value for human life that isn't "Western" and a creepy fetish for muh crusaders and stuff like Lepanto that would fit right in with the old Alt-Right Deus Vult crowd. There's this neurotic obsession with hygiene, this selfish hedonism, a fixation on the clergy (probably a consequence of being French). And when Raspail writes his protagonists, they're all complete 100% racist ideologues who get off on the idea of shooting down half-starved Hindu civilians. He never really walks through why exactly the brown horde is going to be so bad, it's just taken for granted that they're complete savages. (An Uncle Tom near the end, though, is his Based Minority who talks about how Whiteness is a State of Mind.)

There's also this thing of frequently referring to "black," talking about Hindus. I noticed this once in a Byron de la Vandal song, "Black is the Color." Was a beautiful, haunting, unforgettable tribute to the Rotherham victims... but it portrayed the killers as dark people, when they were just normal Middle Easterners. It conflated one group of murderous barbarians with American Blacks. A great song, but built around a core of deceitful propaganda. There's a similar thing often going on in the book.

It was an interesting experience to read it and I see where it is very relevant to modern life, but the thing also left me feeling slimy and in a funk. I don't think Raspail is somebody I'd want to meet in person.
 
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I got to the middle of Fathers and Sons and gave up. I just don't find any of the characters appealing and the plot just doesn't go anywhere.
 
Kerr Avon said:
Brandon Sanderson is probably already doing rough drafts for it
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He actually said in an AMA that he wouldn't take that gig even if the Martin estate came to ask him, because he thinks GRRM is a tryhard edgelord and he'd feel sinful writing anything to fit that universe.
 
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I’m having fun with the “Tom Stranger” series. Basically he’s a kick ass insurance claims adjustor, lots of action and snarky humor. Not very woke, which is a bonus.

The Adventures of Tom Stranger, Interdimensional Insurance Agent https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D0E075A/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_GQ09TH3JCQ8WEQRWD5NP

It’s only an Audible exclusive right now but that’s my preferred form of reading as I’m usually going somewhere and can’t sit and read.
 
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Absolutego said:
He actually said in an AMA that he wouldn't take that gig even if the Martin estate came to ask him, because he thinks GRRM is a tryhard edgelord and he'd feel sinful writing anything to fit that universe.
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That's an interesting comment coming from a low quality hack.
 
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I was hoping someone could recommend a good book on the IRA & or The Troubles
 
Absolutego said:
He actually said in an AMA that he wouldn't take that gig even if the Martin estate came to ask him, because he thinks GRRM is a tryhard edgelord and he'd feel sinful writing anything to fit that universe.
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Gotta lure him in with the promise of a spin off series starring a R'hllor fire mage so he has another magic system to chart out.


Doubled down on the scandinoir with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Liked it more than LtROi. Felt very clinical and dry. I hyped up the mystery in my head more than it turned out to be I thought it would turn out that the whole family was in on the murders a la Murder on the Orient Express so the resolution was a bit of a letdown.
 
I'm reading "The Library at Mount Char" again for the 3rd or 4th time. I typically don't do that but I love how weird this book is. Unfortunately the author is rivaling GRRM with the time between books. It's also the only book he's written that isn't some kind of Linux or network manual.

Anyone who may be inclined to pick up a weird but wonderful novel, try not to find out too much. It's better to go in blind.
 
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