BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

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drizzle
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by drizzle »

Been on a Ballard kick

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Very awesome, maybe my favorite thing I've read in some time. Feels prescient, the buildings like the one the book described are now popping up more and more with more involved internal ecosystems. Really psyched Ben Wheatley is adapting this, it's right up his alley.

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This one not so much. Conceptually brilliant, the ideas at the heart of this really are kinda next level; albeit somewhat less now than in the 70s as the link between human sexuality, celebrity and new technology has become far more explicit now than it was then. There's also a neat angle you can take where all the talk about new sexuality via car crashes is really just an allegoric smoke screen for the protagonist's own curiosity in homosexuality. But not the most fun book to read, bit of a slog in parts, especially the passages that just describe ejaculating on broken car interiors and traffic jams for pages on end. Only 220 pages but took me weeks to finish.
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Kid That's Lifeless »

I read Crash when I was 17. I thought it was awesome, because carnage and boners.

The last month and a half I've read:

The Bayou Trilogy by Daniel Woodrell: Too fucking dope. Sleazy rednecks doing fucked up shit in the swamp.
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: Funny in a couple of spots, drags like an absolute motherfucker in others.
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan: Liked it. Mainly a collection of short stories that are connected by punk rock.
Little Green Men by Christopher Buckley: Great weekend read about alien abductions and the government. Totally ridiculous.

Currently on The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy. Makes American Tabloid's prose seem flowery. Fall out from JFK assassination to Klanned up Mormons to the ugly side of Vegas to CIA-sponsored dope slinging out of Vietnam. Halfway in and i'm fucking in.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by glasshandralphie »

Ramen wrote:Looking for some good sci fi books. I don't read much of this genre so please recommend some of the obvious ones and also some more obscure jawns too.

thanls bros.
VALIS

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Echo Leader »

glasshandralphie wrote:
Ramen wrote:Looking for some good sci fi books. I don't read much of this genre so please recommend some of the obvious ones and also some more obscure jawns too.

thanls bros.
VALIS
:cheers:

Also Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep if you've never read it. Obvious pick but classic.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

started to read that lovecraft book of stories but got super annoyed by his formula and obsession with mostly lame (but really its just he recycles the techniques) psychological atmospherics. theres like 2 stories in there that i really dug hard. cthulhu was bomb though once it got rolling. easy to see why its so inspirational to so many dudes

just started to read Lies of Locke Lamora. shit is fucking DOPE so far

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ChaMerZ »

currently plodding through this baby ...

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this guy is completely nuts. there's a section where he talks about the OJ Simpson trial (he had been brought in as a supposed 'expert'). it's hilarious how he breaks everything down. he's a scientist through and through but he's definitely on the eccentric end of the spectrum.
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

lies of locke lamora was fucking dope
then read spy who came in from the cold which was fucking sick
then tried to read a ghengis khan bio by john man but the book is retarded and so im just stopping because its torture and ive read his book about attila and his schtick kind of sucks and its the same schtick here

now the queue looks like this:
Badasses by ben thompson (historical caricatures written by an fsu grad that reads like real ultimate power)
various football books
locke lamora book 2

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Tweak Da Leak »

Image
UBM CD COMING SOON

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

Read Badass by Ben Thompson. Awesome book for what it is.

Also read/reading some football shit

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by wizeguy »

Finished Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky brothers. Classic SF that I've somehow never heard about until this year.
I wanna get into John le Carre since I'm a big fan of Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People tv shows/movie. If anyone has any recommendation for his work except these two, feel free to advise me what to check out next.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

@wizeguy
I recently read the spy who came in from the cold. Shit is fucking dope and if you've already read tinker tailor and smileys people you may as well read honourable schoolboy even though the latter book is inferior in my opinion

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by drizzle »

A Perfect Spy is dope as fuck.

Secret Piligrim is very cool if you want to read more about Smiley, it's kinda like a collection of short stories framed as Smiley teaching a class.

Russia House is pretty good too but not as good as the others already mentioned. Same with Night Manager, where he goes more to thriller mode rather than character study.
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by drizzle »

Image

Just finished this. Basically like a Penthouse Letter written by Richard Stark based on a character by Jim Thompson. Loved the fuck out of it, obv. I've had a lot of experience with all sorts of exploitation, would consider myself pretty jaded, but this had me both :ohsh: and kinda blushing in a few spots tbh.
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

@drizzle
read hit man by Lawrence block when I was a kid and was highly disappointed. Very boring to me back then. Bad taste in my mouth since. Great le carre recommendations though will definitely cop

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Career Over Like Mike(NJJ) »

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Reading this has reminded me that I still need to see Repo Chick and Searchers 2.0.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Tommy Bunz »

Avoid Repo Chick at all costs.
I do want to read that book though.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Career Over Like Mike(NJJ) »

Definitely worth picking up just for the chapters on the 4 '80s movies since you can cop the book for so cheap on Amazon.

What does Jennifer Balgobin look like in Repo Chick?

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Raphael De La Ghetto »

Tweak Da Leak wrote:Image
Had to google this to see if it was the same Charles Van Doren from the quiz show scandals.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ChaMerZ »

anybody here read the 'a clockwork orange' novel? how is it compared to the movie?
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

@chamerz
Seen it. Thought 'ehh'. Some cool stuff obv. Read it. Didn't care enough to finish. Obviously some people love it. Just not my thing.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by wizeguy »

ChaMerZ wrote:anybody here read the 'a clockwork orange' novel? how is it compared to the movie?
Well I first read the book, then watched the movie. I thought it was a masterpiece. It's inevitable that you're gonna picture movie scenes while reading it, but what you gonna do.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ChaMerZ »

ric wrote:@chamerz
Seen it. Thought 'ehh'. Some cool stuff obv. Read it. Didn't care enough to finish. Obviously some people love it. Just not my thing.
yah, heard the movie was good and watched it, but tbh i wasn't very impressed. i heard the book was better though, but i'm not sure. i'll give it a shot one of these days.
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ChaMerZ »

wizeguy wrote:
ChaMerZ wrote:anybody here read the 'a clockwork orange' novel? how is it compared to the movie?
Well I first read the book, then watched the movie. I thought it was a masterpiece. It's inevitable that you're gonna picture movie scenes while reading it, but what you gonna do.
pls explain why it was a masterpiece ...

the movie itself was pretty out there, which i suppose is never a bad thing, but imo all the different elements didn't cohere well. this leads me to believe that either kubrick inadvertently gutted the source material or the book itself was fragmented, disorganized.
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by wizeguy »

ChaMerZ wrote:
wizeguy wrote:
ChaMerZ wrote:anybody here read the 'a clockwork orange' novel? how is it compared to the movie?
Well I first read the book, then watched the movie. I thought it was a masterpiece. It's inevitable that you're gonna picture movie scenes while reading it, but what you gonna do.
pls explain why it was a masterpiece ...

the movie itself was pretty out there, which i suppose is never a bad thing, but imo all the different elements didn't cohere well. this leads me to believe that either kubrick inadvertently gutted the source material or the book itself was fragmented, disorganized.
Well I read the book about 12 years ago, so my memory of the material is more linked with the movie which I've seen dozen times since. Though the movie is a bit over the top, it still fallows basic story and ideas of the book. So some of the things I like are retained in the movie (if you didn't like the movie, don't bother with the book). First you have a great story, shocking in moments with many interesting developments, then you have a great style with all those Russian/Serbian words incorporated in the future Britain setting, then you have an attack on the fashionable idea in psychology at the time called behaviorism and it's totalitarian aspects (which can get a little didactic at times), then you have that conversation with a prison priest about it and free will that left a big impression on my young impressionable (and pretentious) mind and so on.

My favorite genre in literature is dystopian fiction, and this book is an original contribution to that type of work. The idea of 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' is an old one, but I guess it needs restatement from time to time to combat the current pretensions of fashionable 'scientists'.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ChewbaccaUncircumcised »

Reading this in preparation for when The Witcher 3 drops in February.

Image

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ChaMerZ »

wizeguy wrote:
ChaMerZ wrote:
wizeguy wrote:
ChaMerZ wrote:anybody here read the 'a clockwork orange' novel? how is it compared to the movie?
Well I first read the book, then watched the movie. I thought it was a masterpiece. It's inevitable that you're gonna picture movie scenes while reading it, but what you gonna do.
pls explain why it was a masterpiece ...

the movie itself was pretty out there, which i suppose is never a bad thing, but imo all the different elements didn't cohere well. this leads me to believe that either kubrick inadvertently gutted the source material or the book itself was fragmented, disorganized.
Well I read the book about 12 years ago, so my memory of the material is more linked with the movie which I've seen dozen times since. Though the movie is a bit over the top, it still fallows basic story and ideas of the book. So some of the things I like are retained in the movie (if you didn't like the movie, don't bother with the book). First you have a great story, shocking in moments with many interesting developments, then you have a great style with all those Russian/Serbian words incorporated in the future Britain setting, then you have an attack on the fashionable idea in psychology at the time called behaviorism and it's totalitarian aspects (which can get a little didactic at times), then you have that conversation with a prison priest about it and free will that left a big impression on my young impressionable (and pretentious) mind and so on.

My favorite genre in literature is dystopian fiction, and this book is an original contribution to that type of work. The idea of 'road to hell is paved with good intentions' is an old one, but I guess it needs restatement from time to time to combat the current pretensions of fashionable 'scientists'.
My interests are slanted in the same direction as yours (dystopian fiction, cyberpunk). Never read the book, but I will definitely try it out as I feel I'd gain a greater appreciation of the content. The movie was very ho hum to me. This to me seems like one of those instances where book >> movie, but I will wait till I read the book to finalize my thoughts.
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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

Read Resistance Rebellion Death by camus
obviously good
now on to The Secret Pilgrim cause this shit balls

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Joe Pesci »

Big Sur

Kerouac was a weird dude.

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by ric »

Finished secret pilgrim. Dope. Onto Machiavelli prince

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Re: BOOKS. whatcha readin...?

Post by Combo7 »

Anyone reading this?

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