almost done with the three body problem by chixin lui.

 

its massively over hyped scifi. its super flat and reads like a young adult book.

 

there was a background story about the chinese revolution years that was much more interesting than the plot or the rest of it.

 

also, its actually a four body problem with three stars and the trisolaris planet.

 

that said — its not terrible and i’ll read the followups eventually.

 

next is another grand scifi novel — a fire upon the deep by vernor vinge.

2 hours ago, mrnyc said:

almost done with the three body problem by chixin lui.

 

its massively over hyped scifi. its super flat and reads like a young adult book.

 

there was a background story about the chinese revolution years that was much more interesting than the plot or the rest of it.

 

also, its actually a four body problem with three stars and the trisolaris planet.

 

that said — its not terrible and i’ll read the followups eventually.

 

next is another grand scifi novel — a fire upon the deep by vernor vinge.

 

I enjoyed "The Three Body Problem", but haven't gotten though the second book yet.  I'm told the translation of the first book is the problem, and the other two are better translated and more engaging- I didn't notice, but maybe because I didn't find the first one to be a bad read anyway.  I fell off the second one because I haven't had much time to read, not because of the book itself.

21 hours ago, X said:

 

I enjoyed "The Three Body Problem", but haven't gotten though the second book yet.  I'm told the translation of the first book is the problem, and the other two are better translated and more engaging- I didn't notice, but maybe because I didn't find the first one to be a bad read anyway.  I fell off the second one because I haven't had much time to read, not because of the book itself.

 

 

its not unenjoyable to me, its just ok. given all the hype its just disappointing as its like a young adult book.

 

i bought three body, but i will definitely go the borrow from the library route for the others. i heard mixed reviews of the other two, but we will see.

 

i've read the translation isnt the problem and that it is just flat. which, to be fair, is typical of a lot of scifi. ken liu is a fantastic translator and scifi writer himself. if you havent read it i am linking a pdf of his award winning short story the paper menagerie below. its really touching. i can't imagine anyone better suited to translate these books:

 

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5838a24729687f08e0321a15/t/5bf2bdfa562fa782871c6252/1542635003373/The-Paper-Menagerie+by+Ken+Liu.pdf

 

also, i read the only major change to the book is the chinese revolution story was moved from the middle of the book to the front for western audience consumption at ken liu's suggestion to set up the story and as westerners would not be so familiar with how things were in china in those days. cixin liu agreed as he said he only had that part in the middle to get it past censors anyway. seemed like the right thing to do to me.

 

 

Speaking of SF, I keep going back to "Deathworlders", which is an online living book now so long I'm not sure anyone would ever have time to finish it.

 

The premise starts out quite simply:  in galactic terms the Earth is an incredibly inhospitable world, a Twelve in a category system which believes no intelligent life could evolve in a planet higher than Ten.   Humans turn out to be extremely physically and mentally imposing compared to alien lifeforms.

^ there is a sort of similiar kind of novel premise called blood music by greg bear that i think i want to read where the alien life form is nano-tech or something small like that and the project is going to be shut down by the gubamint or something, so a scientist injects it in his blood to save it and of course all kinds of physical things happen to him. i dk, but it sounds like kind of a wild mix of scifi and horror. greg bear just passed away in november.

"Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" by Paul Torday, published in 2007.  A visionary sheik wants to introduce salmon fishing to the Yemen highlands. British fishery scientist scoffs at the impossibility but is forced by venal bureaucrats to cooperate with the sheik's slick (and female) lawyer to encourage the project.  

 

It's an epistolary novel (emails, letters, reports, diaries) and very funny. It's also a 2011 movie, which I have not seen but plan to.

My father has been wanting me to read The Fountian Head since high school.

Edited January 26, 20232 yr by Mildtraumatic

12 hours ago, Mildtraumatic said:

My father has been wanting me to read The Fountian Head since high school.

While its better than Atlas Shrugged, you can probably skip it with no harm done.

I'm having a real hard time reading "The Naked and the Dead" by Norman Mailer, a huge best seller in 1948.  Maybe because it's been copied over and over by other (lesser?) writers, it seems stale. Plus, Mailer keeps writing "fug" instead of the actual four-letter word. It's fugging annoying.

10 hours ago, Dougal said:

I'm having a real hard time reading "The Naked and the Dead" by Norman Mailer, a huge best seller in 1948.  Maybe because it's been copied over and over by other (lesser?) writers, it seems stale. Plus, Mailer keeps writing "fug" instead of the actual four-letter word. It's fugging annoying.

 

“So, you're the man who can't spell 'f***.'"

Dorothy Parker to Norman Mailer after publishers had convinced Mailer to replace the word with a euphemism, 'fug,' in his 1948 book, "The Naked and the Dead.”

22 hours ago, Ineffable_Matt said:

While its better than Atlas Shrugged, you can probably skip it with no harm done.

 

If you want to give Ayn a try, start with "Anthem" which is shorter, blunter, and takes her premise to a further extreme.  I suspect she's often "illustrating absurdity by being absurd" as Rush would say, but when she is on ("Aristocracy of pull") she is spot on.

4 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

If you want to give Ayn a try, start with "Anthem" which is shorter, blunter, and takes her premise to a further extreme.  I suspect she's often "illustrating absurdity by being absurd" as Rush would say, but when she is on ("Aristocracy of pull") she is spot on.

I've read the two big ones, I think I'm good with no more Rand.

2 hours ago, Ineffable_Matt said:

I've read the two big ones, I think I'm good with no more Rand.

 

I've read Anthem and not the two big ones.  I also think I'm good with no more Rand.

reading Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra, set in Italy and Hollywood in the 30's and 40's, involving a B-picture movie studio and Italian émigrés (and an assorted cast of other European defectors), enlisted to make pro-American patriotic films. One character, a young itinerant photographer from Italy, crisscrosses the US on his way to LA doing odd jobs in order to survive, finding work in Italian settlements--hence a passing reference to Mayfield Rd. in Cleveland and a company in Columbus called Berry Brothers Bolt Works, if anyone has heard of that--(page 160 lol)

^

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_Brothers_Bolt_Works

On 1/27/2023 at 11:06 AM, Gramarye said:

 

I've read Anthem and not the two big ones.  I also think I'm good with no more Rand.

 

 

you can run, but you can’t hide from her in ne ohio lol.

 

fwiw ayn rand’s poor husband frank o’connor was from lorain. i say poor husband because i guess for years she openly pined for nathaniel brandon who kind of managed her public image.

 

anyway, they came out often to visit and she admired cleveland as you can imagine given her views on such manly things as heavy industry. no doubt it shaped her romance novels.

 

also, there is an early phil donohue interview with rand in dayton that is interesting, especially as a time capsule with the housewives in the audience.

11 hours ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

you can run, but you can’t hide from her in ne ohio lol.

 

fwiw ayn rand’s poor husband frank o’connor was from lorain. i say poor husband because i guess for years she openly pined for nathaniel brandon who kind of managed her public image.

 

anyway, they came out often to visit and she admired cleveland as you can imagine given her views on such manly things as heavy industry. no doubt it shaped her romance novels.

 

also, there is an early phil donohue interview with rand in dayton that is interesting, especially as a time capsule with the housewives in the audience.

 

The protagonists in Atlas Shrugged first met at Patrick Henry University, a thinly veiled CWRU (pre merger) equivalent moved closer to the lake.

If you are against gun control or are convincible.   Correia is a prolific and successful fiction author and knows how to engage readers.

https://www.regnery.com/9781684514144/in-defense-of-the-second-amendment/

12 hours ago, E Rocc said:

If you are against gun control or are convincible.   Correia is a prolific and successful fiction author and knows how to engage readers.

https://www.regnery.com/9781684514144/in-defense-of-the-second-amendment/

 

 

there is no need for much gun control. just copy canadian rules and be done with it. probably proportionally more of them own guns than usa, with far less crime.

 

the fact that a teen, much less an adult, can put money on a card table at a gun show and buy a lethal weapon, for example, but cant operate a crane or perform surgery or anything else dangerous you would need to be of age, vetted and trained for, is a particular usa insanity.

"How Big Things Get Done" by Flyvbjerg and Gardner.  Bottom line:  plan slowly, execute quickly. It explains why so many large projects end up over time and over budget and how to prevent it.

i has finished fire upon the deep, a classic scifi space opera by vernor vinge. the world building is great. i didnt really care for the medieval dog world though, because dogs and medieval arent my thing. the epiphany the dogs came to at the very end of the book was pretty funny though, i wont spoil it.

 

so after a bit i just started blindsight by peter watts. its more scfi, i’m on a kick to catch up with a few things. its about a crack team put together, including a vampire (!), to go check out some aliens. crisp writing, its off to a great start.

The last 6 months I've been doing a lot of reading at the gym hot tub on a cheap kindle. It's a perfect way to wind down.

 

Recently, I gave the Broken Earth book a shot and read 72% of it before giving up. The series has a lot of hype and awards... but just couldn't get into it. The basic premise of these humans, some with abilities, some normal, living on a planet that constantly has cataclysmic "seasons" is very interesting, but at the end of the day, I just didn't feel it. Perhaps I'll revisit it another time.

 

Currently I'm racing through Dead of Night by Nora Roberts (under the J.D. Robb moniker). It's charming, fun, easy. 

 

Let's see... Deception Point and Digital Fortress were okay.  Surrender, New York made me angry, and I gave up after reading just a little of it. Caleb Carr created this wonderful, untouched universe in the Alienist and Angel of Darkness -- and that's it. Full stop. I didn't want to read a contemporary book with references to Dr. Kriezler. I wanted to read another book set in late 19th century New York with all those fleshed out characters - Kreizler, Sara, Stevie, Marcus and Lucas, Roosevelt, and watch their adventures with real life figures. Surrender, New York was certainly not that.

 

Also, I reread most of Stephen King's novellas. The Long Walk is still my favorite.

 

Edited July 12, 20231 yr by TBideon

So I should have bumped this thread myself a month or so ago: My two oldest children are doing Brutus' Summer Reading Challenge for Kids, a program of the Ohio State University Alumni Association:

 

https://www.osu.edu/alumni/activities-and-events/events/2023/brutus-summer-reading-challenge-kids.html

 

In case anyone else here is an OSU alum with younger kids (elementary age, maybe middle school), I'd totally recommend it.  It's kept my kids reading for at least 20-30 minutes a day that very likely wouldn't have happened otherwise, hopefully at least keeping summer learning loss at bay.

 

And I've been shamelessly piggybacking on that myself to read a whole slew of pretty good children's books ("just checking to see if it's appropriate for my third grader," of course).  So in the past month, I've been through A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark Frigate, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, Bridge to Terabithia, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Witch of Blackbird Pond (this was the only one on this list that I'd previously read), and I'm starting now on Island of the Blue Dolphins.  It's actually been a great summer reading-wise.

I'm reading Small Mercies, the new novel by Dennis Lehane, set in South Boston ("Southie") during the explosive 1974 school busing desegregation controversy. I've never read any of his stuff before, assuming because he's so popular (as a screenwriter also, I believe) he can't really be that good of a writer lol. I was wrong. It's excellent. 

finished blindsight and it is a rip roaring first contact adventure that also makes you think about what it is to be human and ultimately how important is human consciousness anyway? oh and a twist ending and a vampire. highly rec’d.

also i just finished blood music last night and it was another fun mind bender. the basic premise is, what if your individual cells were or became sentient? and then … it goes way, way, way out there into 2001 a space odyssey finale land. brave and pretty cool to do that — and yet still its all a very fun and easy read.

 

the writing style was more traditional scifi, like a bit corny at times, vs blindsight which is very sharpy written and thriller taunt. i liked both styles just fine tho, they fit each story well.

 

i think next is the scifi classic mote in god’s eye by pournelle and niven that i never got around to as a kid. then that will be it for scifi for awhile. 

I am trying to read "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace.  It was said to be the rage in the 1990's, called the most discussed, unread book of that decade.  It's laugh-out-loud funny, but maybe not often enough. It's supposed to be two stories; one is about a juniors tennis prodigy who is coming to think he may not be totally human. The other story is apparently about drugs, but I'm not sure.

 

Has anybody read this?  Should I push on?  I'm about a quarter through the 1100 pages and getting a little discouraged.

6 hours ago, Dougal said:

I am trying to read "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace.  It was said to be the rage in the 1990's, called the most discussed, unread book of that decade.  It's laugh-out-loud funny, but maybe not often enough. It's supposed to be two stories; one is about a juniors tennis prodigy who is coming to think he may not be totally human. The other story is apparently about drugs, but I'm not sure.

 

Has anybody read this?  Should I push on?  I'm about a quarter through the 1100 pages and getting a little discouraged.

I saw there was a new post in here and I thought "Hey, what a time to mention that I'm pushing myself through Infinite Jest". I'm only about 140 pages in and I get what you're feeling, but everything I've seen says it really gets going about 350-400 pages in. I'm committed to finishing the damn thing, regardless lol.

I've tried several times to read Infinite Jest and given up in the end. it's frustrating because there are glimpses of incredible sections with shimmering detail and mind blowingly wonderful prose. however they're fairly brief and deeply embedded in what feels like nearly endless and at times inscrutable writing that I found too unpleasant to work through. just my opinion.

 

The Twelve by Cronin is all right. Not as good as the prequel but very readable. 

i just read kwaidan by lafcadio hearn — its a classic collection from the early 1900s of very short and famous japanese ghost stories. they are a little spooky and haunting, but mostly very charming. a few were made into the much spookier kwaidan movie from the early 1960s thats also a classic. hearn was a very engaging writer and i really loved this book.

 

speaking of japan i moved on to reading no longer human by osamu dazai, another fairly short classic novel of modern japanese lit i should have read in my early 20s when you are supposed to read it, but i missed it. im into it so far.

 

on deck after this i have how long until black future month? by n.k. jemisin, a collection of short scifi, and a non fiction book — goth: a history by lol tolhurst of the cure, who should know, right? and btw yes his name is lol not laugh out loud, but i listened to a podcast with him talking about the book that got me interested and he seemed pretty funny. 😂

 

i also got another old classic — lives of the saints by fr. alban butler — for the bedside. you are supposed to read about one saint at a time at night and it will help you get to sleep.

I don't read a lot of Japanese literature, but hot damn Kokoro is amazing.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokoro

^ oh right that is another japanese classic i should get around to someday.

I'm a bit late to the party, but Babel by R.F. Kuang is an enjoyable read. I love alternate histories.

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 20241 yr by TBideon

Still reading ... I'm about half-way through it.  It's one of those read-with-a-dictionary-at-hand books, enjoyable and very funny. Definitely worth it but kind of a slog at some points.

 

Just read "The Friend" by Sigrid Nunez, a book from a few years ago about a decades-long friendship between two writers, one of whom (a guy who's much older) commits suicide and the other, a woman, who reluctantly ends up with his orphaned and greatly depressed Great Dane. A lot about the competitive, petty and backstabbing literary world. Now being made into a movie with Bill Murray, Naomi Watts and a Great Dane

"The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store" by James McBride. Exceptional. Easily 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I just started a random omnibus of the Merciless Lies series. It's an easy read.

35 minutes ago, eastvillagedon said:

"The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store" by James McBride. Exceptional. Easily 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

 

I just started reading that yesterday. Great minds...

On 3/13/2024 at 11:45 AM, Dougal said:

Still reading ... I'm about half-way through it.  It's one of those read-with-a-dictionary-at-hand books, enjoyable and very funny. Definitely worth it but kind of a slog at some points.

 

 

how did it go? i never finished that. just got distracted.

 

if you want to conquer genre and move on to the scifi version of infinite jest fyi that would be gene wolfe’s book of the new sun.

 

On 4/24/2024 at 7:45 PM, mrnyc said:

 

how did it go? i never finished that. just got distracted.

 

if you want to conquer genre and move on to the scifi version of infinite jest fyi that would be gene wolfe’s book of the new sun.

 

 

I'm now about 2/3rds done, not including footnotes. I'm moving along at 5-10 pages a day; maybe I'll finish by July. 

 

Thanks for the Wolfe recommendation.  Sounds appealing.

OK, I finished Infinite Jest.  I feel as if I am still recovering from a long illness. 

 

1100 pages is just a terrible author's conceit.  It's hilariously funny at times, intriguingly plotted at times; I can see the collegiate reader's interest.  Mine flagged at around 700 pages; it was real drudgery to finish.  A good editor could have brought that book in at 500 pages.

i read city and also way station by clifford simak, two highly rec’d scifi classics — and enjoyed both of them. simak has a very easy going pastoral writing style that was just great.

 

city is a fix up of short stories of a future earth run by dogs and their loyal robots, who have heard legends of humans. highest rec — its really stylish.

 

way station is about a backwoods guy who runs a lowkey stopover hotel for aliens. charmingly done.

 

after that i read futurological conference by stanislaw lem, a trippy, druggy 60s classic. its exceedingly wild and i didn’t really get the point of it until halfway through, so hang in there its worth it.

 

currently — i just started left hand of darkness by ursula le guin. in her amazing into, best i have ever read, she even mentioned a futurological conference, so that sure caught me. its about a star trek type visitor to a planet to invite them to join the federation basically, but the human inhabitants are hard for him to understand. i won’t say more except it has one of the most famous lines in scifi novels — the king is pregnant.

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2024Jun 27 by mrnyc

After the Infinite Jest saga, I just finished "Skios" by the Brit Michael Frayn. Light-hearted, funny, it's beach reading. Sort of a mash-up of Mamma Mia and Noises Off (NO also writted by Frayn).

 

I can't actually recommend it as a book, but it will make a great movie.

^ you definitely earned light hearted after infinite jest. and a medal.

 

i am starting the king in yellow by robert chambers. its a handful of short stories that influenced many writers like hp lovecraft, the crime drama true detective and all the way to david foster wallace and others.

Just read The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Set in a small town a couple hours from Dublin (no, not Ohio, the bigger more historic one! The author is Irish). The saga of the beleaguered, hapless Barnes family on a spiral of downward mobility following the 2008 financial crash gives new meaning to the term "dysfunctional." lol. Terrific writer. 

On 6/6/2024 at 11:41 AM, Dougal said:

OK, I finished Infinite Jest.  I feel as if I am still recovering from a long illness. 

 

1100 pages is just a terrible author's conceit.  It's hilariously funny at times, intriguingly plotted at times; I can see the collegiate reader's interest.  Mine flagged at around 700 pages; it was real drudgery to finish.  A good editor could have brought that book in at 500 pages.

I finally picked this up again after an extended hiatus. I’m around 380 pages, and I’m pretty much aligned with you so far. It’s scary that you said it flagged at 700, because I was about to ask when it started getting really good.

9 hours ago, Ineffable_Matt said:

I finally picked this up again after an extended hiatus. I’m around 380 pages, and I’m pretty much aligned with you so far. It’s scary that you said it flagged at 700, because I was about to ask when it started getting really good.

 

The tennis parts were great. The goofy spy business was funny. But the farther you read the druggier it gets. To me, the sordidness of drug usage, addiction, and recovery just isn't interesting.

 

Also, at some point, I decided to read only the footnotes dealing with the tennis players.

4 hours ago, Dougal said:

 

The tennis parts were great. The goofy spy business was funny. But the farther you read the druggier it gets. To me, the sordidness of drug usage, addiction, and recovery just isn't interesting.

 

Also, at some point, I decided to read only the footnotes dealing with the tennis players.

Gotcha, that makes sense. I’ve read enough Shelby, Allgren, et al that I’m kind of numb to all the drug stuff. That being said, the bit about the stillborn in the blanket was pretty rough.

Reading Colored Television by Danzy Senna, a satire about race, class, academia, Hollywood and the television industry (and other stuff). Very funny. Brilliant writer.