Book thread

[polliwog]

Currently on a Sarah Waters tear. If you're up for a Victorian-styled page-turner with super-hot sex scenes, these are really enjoyable.

[RoryQ]

Always been interested in Buddhism but never quite bought into some aspects. Heard this was good.

[Rawok]

Just finished "the ocean at the end of the lane", and Neil Gaiman delivered perfection as always. Amazing story and one can easily finish it in one night.

As autumn is approching I think I'll re-read some of my favorite scifi, almost anything by Alastair Reynolds is awesome, and of course Isaac Asimov.

Do any of you read while getting tatooed? I find it helps when there's some awful spots to be filled in, like elbow (hellbow!).

(I apologize if this has already been discussed in this thread, feel free to ignore me while I browse through the previous pages.)

[RoryQ]

Just finished "the ocean at the end of the lane", and Neil Gaiman delivered perfection as always. Amazing story and one can easily finish it in one night.

As autumn is approching I think I'll re-read some of my favorite scifi, almost anything by Alastair Reynolds is awesome, and of course Isaac Asimov.

Do any of you read while getting tatooed? I find it helps when there's some awful spots to be filled in, like elbow (hellbow!).

(I apologize if this has already been discussed in this thread, feel free to ignore me while I browse through the previous pages.)

I read when getting long sessions... I started doing it when I was getting my backpiece and still do it on frontpiece sessions. If it's something I've been saving up to enjoy then it definitely helps.

When I was getting my back done I remember one of the books was Dan Simmons' "Carrion Comfort".

The last few things have been B-Move / super trashy but readable Larry Correia novels.

The kindle works best if you only have one hand.

For smaller pieces / one shots I don't bother- usually I'll see if the tattooer wants to shoot the shit.

[Rawok]

The kindle works best if you only have one hand.

Cool, I usually go with a pocket book which I can manouver with one hand. But I was thinking about getting a kindle, it's funny they never really made it big here in Sweden, don't see them around much anyway but I went to London in August and like every other person on the tube had one.

What's your favorite book genre?

[RoryQ]

Cool, I usually go with a pocket book which I can manouver with one hand. But I was thinking about getting a kindle, it's funny they never really made it big here in Sweden, don't see them around much anyway but I went to London in August and like every other person on the tube had one.

What's your favorite book genre?

I read a lot of SF / Fantasy and horror, but normally I have something non fiction on the go at the same time for balance (usually religion, history or lately been reading a lot of classics stuff).

When I'm at home I always favour real books. But when travelling then the kindle comes into its own... Three books in your bag versus a kindle that takes up less room than one? A no brainer if you like travelling light, like me. Plus, you can "turn the page" one handed.

[Pleadco]

[ATTACH]11344[/ATTACH]

Always been interested in Buddhism but never quite bought into some aspects. Heard this was good.

Along a similar vein, although more of a philosophy, I enjoy appreciate taoism. One of my favorite books on the subject is "the Tao of Pooh."

[RoryQ]

Reading Glen Cook's The Black Company series (I got a 3 book omnibus).

Considering it was written in 1984 it has aged perfectly... It feels like it could have been written this year!

The protagonists are a mercenary company who are contracted to serve the kind of dark overlord that most fantasy series use as their stock villain. I'm 50 pages in and they've been involved in several massacres, murders etc. I'm expecting a redemption is on the cards down the line but so far no one is looking very heroic.

Steven Erikson heaped praise on it as fantasy with a dark, gritty feel that changed the genre slowly. Got to agree that I can see the impact it had on Erikson's work at least... Although Cook's work is much darker so far.

[tatB]

Started reading The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I hear it is first book in a short series

[Mark Bee]

Started reading The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I hear it is first book in a short series

Those first 7 books were brilliant. I got tired of waiting for him to finish around that time, so I kinda lost my track. Then he died.

I'm reading Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything" right now along side John Scalzi's "Lock In." I recently finished Carson Stroud's "Niceville," book 1 of 3 in a wonderfully creepy supernatural series. Great fun. Also just finished the latest Lee Child Jack Reacher book. Mindless, mindless, fun.

[RoryQ]

Started reading The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I hear it is first book in a short series

It's an imperfect series, but great all the same. Enjoy! Probably the ultimate in farmboy-hero-coming-of-age epic fantasy.

I think one of the reasons it catches so much flak is that people do care about it (or did, because it's done and dusted now). If no one was bothered then there wouldn't have been so much complaining about Jordan taking it down a cul de sac for 3-4 books towards the end. It's not even that he wrote anything crazy... It just slowed to a crawl.

The last few books, which were written by Sanderson, actually tie it up better than I expected, although there's a fairly noticeable transition in writing style and a sense of urgency ("I've been paid to wrap this up in 1000 pages, here goes").

[Lppp64]

Currently reading Lawrence Wright's book on Scientology: "Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief"

[CaptainMidnight]

Reading Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312 right now. Just got caught up with Sanderson's Stormlight Archive too.

[polliwog]

I've been sort of stuck for books lately. Reading half of something and putting it down, spending far too much time online (obviously). Recommendations for an amazing book that might help rewire a distracted brain would be so appreciated...

[Graeme]

I've been sort of stuck for books lately. Reading half of something and putting it down, spending far too much time online (obviously). Recommendations for an amazing book that might help rewire a distracted brain would be so appreciated...

I am not sure if this is the sort of thing you're looking for but I'm currently reading Black Holes and Time Warps by Kip Thorne. I came across him because he was the scientific consultant for the movie Interstellar (which I loved) and this book, published in 1994, gets into the science we see in that movie. It's basically about the really weird shit that arises from Einstein's theory of general relativity, and about scientific discovery and intellectual curiosity generally. It's well-written and fairly readable--some of it is pretty difficult, but I feel that Thorne does a good job of explaining some really challenging concepts--and he grounds it in the human experience of science. For me, reading about space stuff is super enjoyable. It's not always easy--it's usually the opposite--but it's so rewarding and mind-expanding.

[polliwog]

Thank you! I know very little about space but am open to learning more. (And will hopefully have no time or energy left to write regrettable posts on here while trying to read and understand this book.)

[sophistre]

I could do book recommendations all day long. What genres do you like? I read just about anything. Weird fic and horror for professional reasons though. I just finished Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, which was interesting. Not fast-paced, but a great set of character/relationship studies set against a mysterious/unexplained environmental mystery.

One of my favorite books of all time might have to be Kraken, by China Mieville. It's brimming full of cool ideas. I'm mad with envy that I didn't write it myself. I feel that way about his prose most of the time, though.

Other favorites in weird fic/horror: Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, Nathan Ballingrud (North American Lake Monsters was my favorite short story collection last year; it's creepy and absolutely beautiful), Brian Evenson, Ramsey Campbell. Colson Whitehead's 'Zone One' is an amazing book. Sophisticated. Uh...pretty much any anthology by the Vandermeers or Ellen Datlow, honestly.

RE: Quantum physics -- Lisa Randall writes a lot of cool laymen's books too. Warped Passages is the one I read a while back, but she's got some others too.

My favorite 'fun' non-fic writer is probably Mary Roach. Her books are seriously fascinating (and very funny) -- they usually focus on exploring the place where scientific research overlaps with uncomfortable aspects of humanity...like death, or the afterlife, or sex, or food, or what's involved in sending people into space.

[jen7]

Chiina Mieville is awesome. I really liked The Scar as well

[sophistre]

Me too!! Until Kraken came out it was far and away my favorite. It's the one I had him sign when I went to see him read from Embassytown.

[Graeme]

@sophistre What would you recommend as a good starting point with Ramsey Campbell? I know there are people who love him, but I read his The Darkest Part of the Woods and really didn't like it. Maybe he just isn't my thing, but I really love Thomas Ligotti and Laird Barron and classics like Lovecraft and MR James (hell, my first tattoo, before I learned that tattoos don't have to be full of obvious and overt meaning, is of the Necronomicon) so I figure that Campbell is in my general field of interest.

[polliwog]

I could do book recommendations all day long. What genres do you like?

Thanks! Mostly funny dead English people. I don't want read to more of this, though, but when faced with an overwhelming number of choices that's what I tend to revert to. Sometimes I read mysteries or nature writing. For my job there's a pressure to keep up with new mainstreamish literary fiction, which it's possible to begin to resent. Trying to say that without sounding dismissive - oy...

If I may ask, what's your profession that involves reading lots of weird fic and horror? Because that sounds pretty cool.

[sophistre]

@sophistre I really love Thomas Ligotti and Laird Barron and classics like Lovecraft and MR James (hell, my first tattoo, before I learned that tattoos don't have to be full of obvious and overt meaning, is of the Necronomicon) so I figure that Campbell is in my general field of interest.

Oooh, very cool! We share some tastes in fiction, then! Campbell's is an interesting voice. It's not as bleak or subtle as Ligotti, and it isn't as poetic as Barron. Calling him a contemporary horror author feels like stretching things to me...he's been writing for over fifty years.

I'm having trouble remembering where I started with him, but I do know that I started with his short fiction, which I remember preferring to his longer works. It might have been Dark Companions, or possibly Alone With the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell. I suspect it was probably the latter, but I dunno. I'll have to go back through and read some to refresh my memory.

His prose is solid, but what impressed me most about him, when I was blitzing through his stuff, is that he's able to capture the unreliable reality of a descent into madness and paranoia better than anyone else I have ever read. I suppose The Face That Must Die is probably the standout example, though it is a novel. Campbell's mother was schizophrenic and suffered from paranoid delusions. The intimacy with which he depicts characters who slowly lose touch with reality is really something; it lures you along with them gradually enough that you follow the leaps of strange logic that the character makes, and all of it makes total sense...only it's a false kind of sense. Still, it makes the lapse of sanity seem understandable. You get how they got there. I prefer Barron and Ligotti and Ballingrud for the most part because I love lyrical writing, but Campbell is an old master for sure.

Thanks! Mostly funny dead English people. I don't want read to more of this, though, but when faced with an overwhelming number of choices that's what I tend to revert to. Sometimes I read mysteries or nature writing. For my job there's a pressure to keep up with new mainstreamish literary fiction, which it's possible to begin to resent. Trying to say that without sounding dismissive - oy...

If I may ask, what's your profession that involves reading lots of weird fic and horror? Because that sounds pretty cool.

I had to laugh, because 'funny dead English people' is probably actually a huge genre of its own. Not a narrow field, haha. Er, something modern and in that general direction...Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell, maybe?

As for my jerb, well...I'm writing a book. Trying. I call it a profession because I'm doing it every day to the exclusion of all else, but it feels a bit cart-before-the-horse until somebody buys the thing from me. Still, though! A good reason to wallow in genre fiction.

edit: I almost forgot to ask -- what about you? I think I might lose my mind if I had a mandatory reading list that I didn't create myself.

[sophistre]

RIP. :(

[jen7]

I know.....bummer. Good Omens was my favorite.

[gougetheeyes]

Man, I forgot about this thread! I was just talking to someone last night about how I need to take some time to read some fiction. Been OD'ing on some native non-fiction over the last six months:

Like a Hurricane

The Journey of Crazyhorse

Russ Means' autobiography Where White Men Fear to Tread

and Vine DeLoria's Custer Died for Your Sins

All really great and all just gave me momentum putting together the Warriors Fund show.. But now, I need a fiction break. Or at least a Bukowski break..