What are you reading right now?

[glass_houses]

I'm just about 60 pages through "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov for a project.

I cannot emphasize enough how difficult it is to read, let alone comprehend all of the word play and oddities written by Humbert in comparison to other novels. I had just finished reading "The Stranger" by Albert Camus where Meursault's narration is written straight to the point. I thought it was much older with how verbose it is.

Unless you're very familiar with both French and Russian classical literature, I strongly recommend that you read an annotated volume. (Mine is from Penguin.) Nabokov deliberately wrote Humbert as a man desperate to be the smartest one in the room, and trying far too hard to do so. As a result, there are endless references to other works, puns, many quotes in French, and the overall unnecessary complexity that you'd expect from a pretentious humbug like Humbert.

As I'm bilingually impaired and neither French or Russian literature is a familiar area to myself, I would be completely and hopelessly lost trying to read Lolita without annotations.

 

[🔪Cold Steel Brand Rep🔪]

"The Stranger" by Albert Camus

This is my audiobook for the day now, thanks for the unintended rec. "I apologized, though I'm not sure what for" is a very strong sentiment with tons of practical application in the modern world, and I'm blown away at how well this thing aged overall.

 

[pinkcawklover]

Hate Mail

 

[Commander X]

A small gem of a horror novel centered on baseball: "Southpaw" by Frank King, 1988.

The story focuses on the (fictional) city of Oaktown, located just above the Oregon-California border. Oaktown is home to a minor league baseball team, the Wolves, whose reputation has been that of the lowliest team in the (real life) Pacific Coast League. Except for that one golden season of 1963 where after a rough start they suddenly came from behind and were the league championship winners...and the team fell apart after that. For years, the Wolves have gained a reputation, for having the lowest salaries for players in the PCL, and for a revolving-door roster over the decades made up of hapless has-beens, never-weres and wannabes. 25 years later, though, it looks like it's turned around for the Wolves thanks to owner/manager Cynthia 'Bunny' Bunsen, daughter of the original team owner. She's put together a solid team, and come up with marketing ideas that are getting people enthusiastic about the Wolves again for the '88 season. The Wolves' opening day win over Portland is soured when, some hours after the match, the mangled corpse of the Wolves' teenage "ball-girl", who had won over crowds with her handstands and catching of stray baseballs, is found in the team's dugout. More killings ensue as the season goes on, and it becomes obvious that the prime suspect, the ex-con brother of Julie Novick, wearer of the Wolves' mascot costume, had nothing to do with them. As Ms. Bunsen starts to learn, the killings may have something to do with that long-ago winning season, something that local broken-down mooching wino Jackie Cannon, once the captain of the all-conquering '63 Wolves, might be able to shed a little light on.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY

Sick of ISRAEL

 

[ComStar]

War Diaries: 1939-1945 by Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke

Alanbrooke's (unredacted) war diaries, intended for his wife but eventually published because Churchill didn't give the general staff much credit in his own WW2 history. Also because Alanbrooke was broke as hell efter the war.

It's interesting but very dry, although i laughed when he called the French filthier and more inefficient than ever a mere three days into the war

 

[Stasi]

Just finished Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Not terrible but not great either, at least it didn't grab me the way some books do, probably a 6 or 7/10. I like the structure for the most part and some of the worldbuilding is interesting but for a 500+ page novel nothing really happened and it all felt like setup.

There are apparently 4 books in the series? I don't know if I like the first one enough to commit to 3 more at this point unless the quality improves drastically in the other books.

 

[Donut Coma]

My gentle nigga, please consider yourself really treated with this one. The book can be read as both an adventure for kids and as a true phylosophical (and even political and religious) work. It is no wonder it is regarded that high.

One of my professors told us that Moby Dick wasn't meant to be read cover to cover. And it is less daunting if you jump around to the story parts, and just sort of meander through the whaling parts on the way.

I'm currently cheering myself up with Pox: Genius, Madness and the Mysteries of Syphilis by Deborah Hayden. Not far enough in to offer a fair opinion yet; if it's even a somewhat readable bit of medical history, though, I'm willing to check it out.

 

[Commander X]

The Last Buffoon by Len Levinson (originally as Leonard Jensen). A raucous comedy novel by an author who toiled in the pulp fiction trenches, much like his main character. Originally published in 1980 by Belmont-Tower Books, reissued in paperback and e-book by an outfit called Destroyer Books.

Len Levinson wrote a lot of books under various psuedonyms and house names and so on, including blood and thunder pulpy series like the WWII based "Rat Bastards" series, and entries in other action-adventure series like The Sharpshooter, about a killer vigilante with a mad-on against the Mafia in general.

Levinson offers a glimpse into the zany life of a hack paperback writer living in late 1970s NYC. First-person narrator Alexander Frapkin knows without question that he is writing trash. As the book starts Frapkin is completing his latest novel, another entry in the "Triggerman" series, in which vigilante hero Johnny Ripelli takes on the Mob. As he's writing, Frapkin's editor calls to tell him to include a scene in the book where Ripelli comes under an attack from a helicopter, as this is the image he has commissioned from the cover artist; the editor also confirms that the story is taking place in Miami and says that he'll have the artist add some palm trees into the drawing.

Frapkin, who chucked in a more successful career in PR to pursue his dreams of becoming a writer, is as sleazy as some of the characters he writes about, and he'd be the first to admit it. The reader follows along with Frapkin as he works on his series fiction, gets married yet again (Frapkin marries women who are about to lose their green cards in exchange for cash, as part of a scheme worked out by his lawyer), does a lot of drugs (his connection accepts copies of his trashy books as downpayments), tries to hustle a film version of one of his "adult" novels, and even gets beaten up for his writing by Mafioso, because a mobster caught his daughter reading the same porno novel Frapkin's trying to get adapted for film. Which only fuels his already pretty intense paranoia.

 

[Hweeks]

Just finished Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Not terrible but not great either, at least it didn't grab me the way some books do, probably a 6 or 7/10. I like the structure for the most part and some of the worldbuilding is interesting but for a 500+ page novel nothing really happened and it all felt like setup.

There are apparently 4 books in the series? I don't know if I like the first one enough to commit to 3 more at this point unless the quality improves drastically in the other books.

The 2nd book basically picks up right where the first one left off and is a good conclusion. The 3rd and 4th books are a separate but related storyline. I liked 3 and 4 a lot less than 1 and 2.

To avoid double posting:

I finished Atomic Habits - really good book about building good habits. Now I'm reading Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance.

 

[Sincere Irony LLC]

I would like to recommend Confederacy of Dunces. I don't want to explain the overall plot but I'll say I found it very funny, and although it was written in the 1960's the ideas and archetypes are very familiar. It feels like a long sitcom episode and everything ties together very nicely. I think the main character, Ignatius, would be a groyper today. Pretty easy read, the funniest parts imo are the letters that Ignatius writes.

 

[Commander X]

I'm just glad that every attempt at producing a movie adaption of A Confederacy of Dunces has failed, especially the one that was scheduled for the early Aughts and would have starred Will Ferrell as Ignatius...fortunately that project just sort of evaporated. An actor like Ferrell or any other quirk chungus actor would chew every scene and not even get to the nuances of what makes Ignatius a funny character, and that would be awful. Ignatius isn’t just a fat slob. He’s a fat slob who is intellectual enough to think he’s superior to everyone he meets but not smart enough to stay employed or leave his mother’s house. He like the prototype of a neckbeard who is well versed in world history and literature instead of video games.

 

[BirdUp]

The Chrysalids. It has very good prose, and I enjoy the story so far.

 

[Nick Obre]

Recently finished Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial. Very unique book, it has one (or several?) storytellers recounting stories from the history of an empire that spans unfathomable eras. What's curious about it is that the stories are very evocative, the imagery it paints very striking, and the characters very interesting, but at the same time it's vague, lets your imagination do a lot of the work, and it could be said it rarely has characters. You can read the whole thing and come out still wondering if this empire was sort of European, Arabic, Asian, etc., or ancient, medieval, futuristic, or set in a realistic, magical realism, fantasy, or sci-fi world. Or maybe all of them at different points?
And you can't trust anything the storytellers tell you.

I really liked it, but I can understand if it's not for everyone.

Also, on a whim I got a cheap book I found that has some essays by Noam Chomsky, back from 1995. I've only read a little so far, but it's interesting to see how a lot of his complaints at that time about the Right wing and the Neoliberal system are now the Left now does proudly and openly, and he'd probably defend them now.
I'll elaborate, maybe, when I read more of it.

 

[AnOminous]

Also, on a whim I got a cheap book I found that has some essays by Noam Chomsky, back from 1995. I've only read a little so far, but it's interesting to see how a lot of his complaints at that time about the Right wing and the Neoliberal system are now the Left now does proudly and openly, and he'd probably defend them now.
I'll elaborate, maybe, when I read more of it.

Actually, he has the classical Marx-like position that even if ID politics sometimes addresses legitimate issues, it's ultimately a distraction from the real issue, which is class. So he's at least semi-critical of "wokeness" as a concept.

 

[William Murderface]

I just finished Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobson. That is the most horrifying book I have read in a long, long time. It shows not just the effects of a nuclear strike, but just how easily it can happen, how ineffective our countermeasures our, and how quickly it can spin entirely out of control and lead to the end of the world. The premise is the Norks fire an ICBM at DC and vaporize it and at the same time shoot an SLBM at the Diablo Canyon nuke plant in CA which will essentially take out central CA for the next eon. (The effect of the nuke going off overtop of the fuel rods creates a nuclear fire that will burn through the crust for the next two hundred years, not to mention all the fallout and secondary effects to the area). We shoot our Minute Men missiles at the Norks, but they have have to pass over Siberia, so the Russians think they are under attack, which leads to the end of all things. And of course, the sheer time constraint that people are working under (roughly 30 minutes from the initial Nork launch to DC vaporizing and 6 from the sub launched missile that takes out CA) and the lack of information everyone has.

It was a really good book, but frightening because you know sooner or later someone, somewhere will open up some canned sunshine and all the experts seem to agree that once one goes off the only possible result is the whole world is over because we'll all get dragged into it.

It's all researched and interviews and has a ton of sources and citations and footnotes, so it isn't just like the author is making it up as she goes outside of the scenario, but it is a truly frightening book to think our lives are basically in the hands of a handful of people who have to make decisions on the fly and a system designed to ensure mutually-ensured destruction so nobody wants to go to war, but fails to take into account madmen like the mullahs or someone like Kim Jong Un.

 

[Nick Obre]

Actually, he has the classical Marx-like position that even if ID politics sometimes addresses legitimate issues, it's ultimately a distraction from the real issue, which is class. So he's at least semi-critical of "wokeness" as a concept.

I was talking more about him criticizing the Right for thinking America just has to intervene in other countries' business and conflicts. Now the Left is the side that wants the endless proxy wars, and the Right is trying to get America to pull out and let them fight their own fights.

The book itself seems to be a Spanish-original compilation of essays by Chomsky and Heinz Dieterich so it doesn't appear to exist in English, but the Chomsky essay itself is "Democracy and Markets in the New World Order"

 

[AnOminous]

We shoot our Minute Men missiles at the Norks, but they have have to pass over Siberia, so the Russians think they are under attack, which leads to the end of all things.

I would hope we have subs in place to avoid that exact scenario, but even so, China could end up taking it as an act of war if the wind's blowing in the wrong direction when we take out Pyongyang, never mind that South Korea could end up sucking up a lot of the fallout too.

 

[William Murderface]

I would hope we have subs in place to avoid that exact scenario, but even so, China could end up taking it as an act of war if the wind's blowing in the wrong direction when we take out Pyongyang, never mind that South Korea could end up sucking up a lot of the fallout too.

It's mentioned that the subs are one leg of our nuclear triad (subs, surface launched, and from bombers) but basically it comes down to we only have so many subs with so many sub launched missiles at any one time capable of reaching specific targets, in this case NK, and because the Norks have so many hidden bunkers for Kim to hide in and so many places to hide their mobile launchers, we have to hit with a lot more than just the sub launched stuff. So we go with the Minuteman II, but because of orbital mechanics and fuel and whatnot they have to fly over eastern Russia to hit the Norks.

The problem being the Russians think it's a strike on them so they fire back at us because the Russians don't answer their phone and because of the confusion over who is left in charge in the US they won't talk to anyone but our president who may or may not be alive so no one is sure who to talk to. Plus we know if he hit NK with nukes the ChiComs will declare war on us because they'll be miffed that their population is getting all that lovely fallout and their people dying by the millions per their policy.

In short, it's a war with no time to deliberate and no time to think about options, just fire back and hope for the best. But there is no best.

 

[AnOminous]

Plus we know if he hit NK with nukes the ChiComs will declare war on us because they'll be miffed that their population is getting all that lovely fallout and their people dying by the millions per their policy.

So since we know that's what's going to happen, we probably nuke both of them first with everything we have preemptively.

Then they hit us back with everything they have left.

Israel probably does its Samson thing too because why not, it's Armageddon anyway.