East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was so engrossing for me. In true Steinbeck form, it does an amazing job of relaying the stories of everyday people. There is a strong underlying theme of the...
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was so engrossing for me. In true Steinbeck form, it does an amazing job of relaying the stories of everyday people. There is a strong underlying theme of the importance of free will--in my opinion, East of Eden is ultimately a celebration of free will. Every exercise of free will is a miracle imbuing everything we do with meaning.
I love Grapes of Wrath for the same reasons. The characters, the environment, everything is described so well. Haven't read East of Eden, definitely going to check it out.
I love Grapes of Wrath for the same reasons. The characters, the environment, everything is described so well.
Haven't read East of Eden, definitely going to check it out.
I couldn't recommend East of Eden more. I know it won't be for everyone, but I have thought about it at least a hundred times since I've read it. I'm sure my friends are tired of me talking about...
I couldn't recommend East of Eden more. I know it won't be for everyone, but I have thought about it at least a hundred times since I've read it. I'm sure my friends are tired of me talking about it. It had such an impact on me that I immediately started re-reading it because I didn't want it to be over.
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Also known as Tiger Tiger in the UK. Serialised in 1956 and published as a novel in 57, and a good quarter century ahead of its time. Its the Count of...
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.
Also known as Tiger Tiger in the UK. Serialised in 1956 and published as a novel in 57, and a good quarter century ahead of its time. Its the Count of Monte Cristo in space, a weird, rhythmic Technicolor Jacobean revenge tragedy with lasers. Held to have inspired a lot of the 80s cyberpunk, a favourite of Stephen King and William Gibson. It has jarring shifts of tone, it covers unpleasant and vile topics surprisingly cleverly (especially for its era). It is a book about humanity, through the prism of a far from utopian future. It is my favourite scifi novel and I've read a great deal of them.
And it begins...
“This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it....”
I really like Fante's Arturo Bandini saga. Wait Until Spring, Bandini; Ask the Dust; and Dreams from Bunker Hill. The road to Los Angeles that got published later was clearly a very early work and...
I really like Fante's Arturo Bandini saga. Wait Until Spring, Bandini; Ask the Dust; and Dreams from Bunker Hill. The road to Los Angeles that got published later was clearly a very early work and he hadn't found his style and he was trying really hard to sound smart. You could tell he was just young and hadn't found his voice yet so I don't really count it as part of it.
When I first read Ask the Dust I read it on lookout in the Navy. I had started it but I wasn't very deep. I was on forward lookout one night and I had it with me and I just couldn't put it down so I asked if I could stay outside all night on Lookout just so I can read it. Which everyone was fine with because that meant they got out of having to be out there. I read every bit of it on that watch.
I don't have a favourite, but my most recommended book is probably Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World. It's such an enjoyable read with a really imaginative story and well-crafted characters.
I don't have a favourite, but my most recommended book is probably Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World. It's such an enjoyable read with a really imaginative story and well-crafted characters.
A short history of progress by Ronald wright. Actually listen to the lecture on YT instead. I consider it a must listen for any human. It talks about how ancient civilizations fell and compare it...
A short history of progress by Ronald wright. Actually listen to the lecture on YT instead. I consider it a must listen for any human. It talks about how ancient civilizations fell and compare it to ours.
Couldn't pick a favourite but do have a favourite trilogy, The night angel trilogy are by far my favourite books I have read. I've read them all each year for the last 7 years, they are well loved...
Couldn't pick a favourite but do have a favourite trilogy, The night angel trilogy are by far my favourite books I have read. I've read them all each year for the last 7 years, they are well loved and probably will fall apart if you looked at them for too long but they are just such amazing books.
Borges' Collected Fictions, because I can read it again and again. One of his best stories, The Aleph, predates the Internet but has amazing parallels. The Aleph's diameter was probably little...
Borges' Collected Fictions, because I can read it again and again. One of his best stories, The Aleph, predates the Internet but has amazing parallels.
The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I'd seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand; I saw a woman in Inverness whom I shall never forget; I saw her tangled hair, her tall figure, I saw the cancer in her breast; I saw a ring of baked mud in a sidewalk, where before there had been a tree; I saw a summer house in Adrogué and a copy of the first English translation of Pliny -- Philemon Holland's -- and all at the same time saw each letter on each page (as a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight);
I finished Quixote last month and as a user name it was open. Quixote's madness seems to fit my personality. My family has a history of Alzheimer's and I see it looming in the near future. I just...
I finished Quixote last month and as a user name it was open. Quixote's madness seems to fit my personality. My family has a history of Alzheimer's and I see it looming in the near future. I just read one of Sebald's short poems online. He sounds interesting, though understandably dark.
I would have to say Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett. It's hilarious and absurd and poignant. I read it out whenever someone returns my copy to me (the current loan has been going on for like 3...
I would have to say Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett. It's hilarious and absurd and poignant. I read it out whenever someone returns my copy to me (the current loan has been going on for like 3 years now, though)
For series, I'd have to say The Culture series by Iain M. Banks. Think Star Trek but not afraid of transhumanism, interventionism, or AI. I read it for utopian escapism.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It was so engrossing for me. In true Steinbeck form, it does an amazing job of relaying the stories of everyday people. There is a strong underlying theme of the importance of free will--in my opinion, East of Eden is ultimately a celebration of free will. Every exercise of free will is a miracle imbuing everything we do with meaning.
I love Grapes of Wrath for the same reasons. The characters, the environment, everything is described so well.
Haven't read East of Eden, definitely going to check it out.
I couldn't recommend East of Eden more. I know it won't be for everyone, but I have thought about it at least a hundred times since I've read it. I'm sure my friends are tired of me talking about it. It had such an impact on me that I immediately started re-reading it because I didn't want it to be over.
Speaker for the Dead.
Im not too sure why, because is not my usual thing, but its was a lovely read with a interesting main character.
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.
Also known as Tiger Tiger in the UK. Serialised in 1956 and published as a novel in 57, and a good quarter century ahead of its time. Its the Count of Monte Cristo in space, a weird, rhythmic Technicolor Jacobean revenge tragedy with lasers. Held to have inspired a lot of the 80s cyberpunk, a favourite of Stephen King and William Gibson. It has jarring shifts of tone, it covers unpleasant and vile topics surprisingly cleverly (especially for its era). It is a book about humanity, through the prism of a far from utopian future. It is my favourite scifi novel and I've read a great deal of them.
And it begins...
“This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it....”
I'm torn between "The Black Company" by Glen Cook and "The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch.
I really like Fante's Arturo Bandini saga. Wait Until Spring, Bandini; Ask the Dust; and Dreams from Bunker Hill. The road to Los Angeles that got published later was clearly a very early work and he hadn't found his style and he was trying really hard to sound smart. You could tell he was just young and hadn't found his voice yet so I don't really count it as part of it.
When I first read Ask the Dust I read it on lookout in the Navy. I had started it but I wasn't very deep. I was on forward lookout one night and I had it with me and I just couldn't put it down so I asked if I could stay outside all night on Lookout just so I can read it. Which everyone was fine with because that meant they got out of having to be out there. I read every bit of it on that watch.
I don't have a favourite, but my most recommended book is probably Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World. It's such an enjoyable read with a really imaginative story and well-crafted characters.
Anathem. I'm not sure why, but I didn't put it down (to the point of reading while washing dishes).
A short history of progress by Ronald wright. Actually listen to the lecture on YT instead. I consider it a must listen for any human. It talks about how ancient civilizations fell and compare it to ours.
Couldn't pick a favourite but do have a favourite trilogy, The night angel trilogy are by far my favourite books I have read. I've read them all each year for the last 7 years, they are well loved and probably will fall apart if you looked at them for too long but they are just such amazing books.
Borges' Collected Fictions, because I can read it again and again. One of his best stories, The Aleph, predates the Internet but has amazing parallels.
The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I distinctly saw it from every angle of the universe. I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I'd seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand; I saw a woman in Inverness whom I shall never forget; I saw her tangled hair, her tall figure, I saw the cancer in her breast; I saw a ring of baked mud in a sidewalk, where before there had been a tree; I saw a summer house in Adrogué and a copy of the first English translation of Pliny -- Philemon Holland's -- and all at the same time saw each letter on each page (as a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight);
... you get the idea.
I finished Quixote last month and as a user name it was open. Quixote's madness seems to fit my personality. My family has a history of Alzheimer's and I see it looming in the near future. I just read one of Sebald's short poems online. He sounds interesting, though understandably dark.
I would have to say Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett. It's hilarious and absurd and poignant. I read it out whenever someone returns my copy to me (the current loan has been going on for like 3 years now, though)
For series, I'd have to say The Culture series by Iain M. Banks. Think Star Trek but not afraid of transhumanism, interventionism, or AI. I read it for utopian escapism.