The books we are reading

#124

I recently read Roadside Picnic. Great book, easy few hours read. I feel like they need to really, really make a show based on it (I know they tried but failed and there’s a somewhat recent pilot sitting on a shelf somewhere) and have a nice overarching story. Perfect for Netflix.

#125

Tarkovsky’s Stalker was based on Roadside Picnic. It’s certainly based, ie not an adaptation, but you can definitely see the influence. I’m not much for moving pictures these days, but I do think it’s a great sci-fi work and would lend itself to something serialized.

#126

I love that movie dude. That whole scenario is sci fi gold.

#127

Virginia woolf short stories…

It was either that or Jane austen…

So I picked woolf because of pride and prejudice and zombies…

Not reading it to get laid…

Just Trying to clear my mind of the thought garbage from the Trump era.

#128

I would recommend the ancient Greek play lysistrata by aristophanes…because feminism from 4000 to 3000 years ago…

Even though it’s a comedy about a bunch of women withholding sex from the men as a protest to the Peloponnesian war.

From a historical standpoint it is interesting to see what’s changed and what’s remained the same.

#129

Finished reading woolf’s short stories.

In review they were more creative exercises…not really enthralling to my own imagination…great writer but English society of the late 1800s early 1900s isn’t really a compelling topic to me.

So far I have come across similar themes that are present in other books that I’ve read over the years.
Will take a break from her

Now I’m reading intro to jungian psychology…because similarities and differences of human nature…because people have some similarities in their shadow…and by shadow I mean the similar thoughts that they don’t express to each other but unwittingly share…

Will read woolfs a room of one’s own some other time.

#130

Just finished “The Beatles” by Bob Spitz… about 800 pages but I couldn’t put it down from paragraph 1!

It’s a fascinating story… of course… but Spitz wrote it like a Novel. The first third is about them discovering music and each other… The middle third is a day-by-day trip through several years of Beatlemania (mind blowing!) and the last third is their slow train wreck of a band, of marriages, of friendships, business relation ships.

Really enjoyed the insight into the creation every song, and every album from composing to arranging to performance to recording,

I never expected to be so blown away by a story I thought I more or less already new.

#131

Almost finished reading Jung psychology gonna read gone girl next and then after that I’m gonna finish reading Virginia woolf.

The books are helping with the political and social deprogramming.

#132

I couldnt get into gone girl.

#133

The last thing I read was about 75 pages of student research writing on a concern about GMOs. Didn’t have to fail anyone : ) lol

#134

Just started reading Dune. Having seen the movie is kinda handy, as I’m cruising though filling in the blanks, and seeing how it’s different, but enjoying it.

#135

Dune is so fucking good. Glad the new movie is encouraging people to read it. It isn’t quite science fiction, not quite fantasy.

#136

I’m interested in reading Dune after seeing the movie, BUT with part two confirmed I want to wait until after that so I can be as blank going into part two as I was going into part one.

Fun fact, I actually checked out Dune from my school’s library in 6th grade because one of my teachers highlighted it as a cool book. We had some reading points system where based on how you graded in english, you read books at a certain skill level and took a test on them to get points and you had to get a certain number of points to pass the year. Dune by itself was enough for the entire year. But, my library only had one copy and my friend really wanted to read it, so I sub-let it to him because he was a pretty fast reader every other time except this one. I got the book back with like two weeks left, so I just took it back to the library. I looked for something thin with fat points and found Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Took the test and got 100% in a week. My teacher couldn’t believe it, but I passed. And that’s the story of the time I tried to read Dune.

#137

Yea. Dune is a lot of inner monologue and important conversations and light on action and frankly that dynamic gets more intense until you get to God Emperor of Dune which is basically 230 pages of inner monologue from one character and 70 pages of…well…anything actually happening lol.

#138

Yeah, I like Dune a lot. Haven’t seen any of the screen adaptions since Lynch’s, but I hear the new one is good.

I have to say the series fell off for me after the first one. A bit like Asimov and newer scifi dudes like Baxter and Reynolds, he’s got a ton of cool ideas but doesn’t strike me as a particularly good writer. It’s like he lucked into a solid narrative on the first one but couldn’t keep up the pace or excitement. One and done for me, but I do really like the one.

#139

Dude, it gets so fucking weird by the last two books, which are both set like 10,000 years in the future after the first four, there are fucking space witches that use sex to “imprint” people and control them. And part of that is straight up pedophilia…

Tolkien is another noted SciFi/Fantasy author who has a poor sense of narrative/story telling. He leaves characters on the edge of doom, switches to another story line, then leaves you hanging so long by the time you get back to the cliffhanging characters you are like “oh yea, forgot about that…”

Also, the chapters in Return of the King with Frodo, Sam and Golem traveling through the Dead Swamps…jesus tiddy fucking christ…the last view times I read the book I just skipped those chapters. So boring.

#140

Yeah, that sounds awful. It started heading that way by the second book - poor characterizations and lots of pondering. It just left me a bit cold. I think I made it maybe 1/3 of the way through book 3 before I stopped and never went back. I have re-read Dune several times and it’s still a good read.

For sure. I really dislike everything Tolkien wrote on a lot of levels. Totally agree that he was another guy with academic chops but little writing ability. Even dodging the crappy poetry, I’m with you that it drags in all the wrong spots, has these obviously artificial cliffhangers that just disrupt the narrative, and is generally boring except in the couple moments when it isn’t. Like the entire LotR series could have been 200 pages of fun if you just distilled out the parts where things happen.

I also really hate his provincial “yer taking our farms” shit as a reaction to post-WW1 Britain, and the whole countryside/Hobbits good, Orcs/industrialization bad thread. The worst part of it is it somehow became the template for fantasy novels and people just keep churning out lame escapist crap in the same vein. Give me a good Conan short story any day, I’ll leave Tolkien for people that can plod through it.

#141

With regard to Dune, I think the first book was closer to traditional narrative structures, since it was a pretty basic coming of age / becoming the hero story at heart, but already with some hints at the intended hero deconstruction in the following books. I personally enjoyed the first four novels most.
Also, @Artificer, if you are kinda interested in how the third books ends, the SciFi channel TV adaptation (2000/2003 IIRC) has some great actors and some other good aspects if you can tolerate some very strange design decisions and covers books 1-3 IIRC. It’s a strange adaptation in many regards, but I generally kinda like some aspects of it more than in the Lynch movie.

#142

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#143

Ive been jumping book to book partially reading some books according to my interest level.

Some i didnt finish…and only read a part of.