Observer
10.20.24 | Oh yeah, im currently reading Michael Cisco - Animal Money which is... odd. Good so far tho! But crazy expensive. |
Voivod
10.20.24 | Currently reading : Don DeLillo - Americana
Favourite writers: Cormac McCarthy (the border trilogy), Dennis Johnson (Tree of Smoke), Hans Fallada (The Drinker/Every Man Dies Alone), Antonis Sourounis (The Dance of Roses (in Greek)/Gus the Gangster (in Greek)), Dido Sotiriou (The Dead Await (in Greek)), Ioannis Beratis (The Wide River (in Greek)), Stanislav Lem (Solaris/Cyberiad), Philip Dick (Ubik/A Scanner Darkly), Anton Chekhov (Art of Writing: A Collection of Critical Essays), Hermann Hesse (Siddharta), Graham Green (Burnout), Chuck Palahniuk (Survivor), Hunter S. Thomson (The Rum Diary), Barouk Salamé (The Syrian Testament), Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood). |
Gameofmetal
10.21.24 | Currently slogging through Adam Nevill's The Ritual (very mediocre to kind of bad book, watch the movie instead) and She Is The Darkness from Glen Cook's Black Company series. |
DrMaximus
10.21.24 | Currently reading Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai. Fav overall is prob Gravity's Rainbow or Brothers Karamazov |
Observer
10.21.24 | Voivod is my man. Thank you for those. You read or looked into C Palahniuk's most recent book from this month? Might try it out, tho Ive never read him.
Maximus, thoughts on Laszlo overall? I hear great things about him and his books but I havent jumped in yet. I do have Satantango to read soon though. Also, I've attempted Gravity's Rainbow 3 times and, while getting farther and farther each attempt, I keep having to put it down. It's frustrating.
Metal, Black Company series is on my tbr. |
artificialbox
10.21.24 | since I picked up reading again last year I've pretty much been exclusively reading sci fi. reading Solaris right now and it's great. |
Observer
10.21.24 | Nice. Ever read Dan Simmon's Hyperion? If not that's an amazing one. All the books in the series are phenomenal.
Also, Cyteen by C.J.Cheeryh is an unsung masterpiece too in that genre |
artificialbox
10.21.24 | yeah, I read all 4! I loved the first two and even really enjoyed Endymion. the only dud for me was the last one.
also sick I will add that one to my list then, thanks :) |
Observer
10.21.24 | Welcome! The first 3 novellas are pretty much all one book together. Really love that one. |
DrMaximus
10.21.24 | @Observer
One of my fav authors. Love how cryptic and unsettling his books are, and his prose is excellent - writing long meandering run-on sentences that are incredibly hypnotizing and flow so well. Satantango is what I read first and I feel like that's a good place to start. Although Melancholy of Resistance is my fav overall. War & War and novellas like Chasing Homer are really good as well.
Yeah Gravity's Rainbow is tough haha just have to power through it at times. One of those books you can read many times over and discover something new each time. |
efp123
10.21.24 | The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright is worth anyone’s time. I’m not done with it yet |
Butkuiss
10.21.24 | Currently reading: Hartman & Schwartz’ translation of Kant’s Logic, with the overlong foreword that makes me want to KMS.
Though I read more non-fiction by volume I tend to be more mercenary with writers in that regard because of how narrow their areas of concern tend to be (by necessity, who wants to read a historical account written by a dilettante?). I tend to follow hard-ish SF writers the most closely, with Dick, LeGuin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Greg Egan, Charles Sheffield, Vonnegut and Iain M. Banks highest in my esteem at the moment. In terms of NF, I tend to read a lot of history and philosophy, with a particular focus on Australian history, especially political & labour, political theory, and history and philosophy of science. I’ve given up on musician’s biographies because of how trite they almost always are. |
el_newg
10.21.24 | I used to be a big reader when I was a kid, but sorta fell out of it. Been trying to pick it up again recently. I have no idea what I'm looking for, so I've just been taking recs from people, here's what I've read this year:
Cormac McCarthy - The Road, Blood Meridian
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
Catriona Ward - The Last House on Needless St
Blake Crouch - Dark Matter
Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck
Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451
most of them I felt were meh - good, the only one I really liked was Slaughterhouse Five. Got plenty of things upcoming, classics like Stephen King or Tolkien, but I feel like my profile is not large enough yet to know what I like lol |
Feather
10.21.24 | The three body trilogy is awesome for any of you that like sci fi. |
Winesburgohio
10.21.24 | V. is best Pynchon!! a real rollick with poignant moments liberally dispersed within. Gravity's Rainbow I might love more later down the line, but in all honesty a lot of the tangents I've endured rather than enjoyed. that said the extended scene of Pynchon making fun of British candy is the hardest i've laughed in a book i think |
artificialbox
10.21.24 | "The three body trilogy is awesome for any of you that like sci fi."
been on my list for so long but I've been trying to knock out more stand-alone titles before I commit to another series. Might start it in January. |
TheGreatQ
10.21.24 | Mostly read manga this year but the books I’ve read:
That Which Cannot Be Undone: An Ohio Horror Anthology - various authors
The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies - John Langan
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
The Imago Sequence - Laird Barron
I’ve also read some of Songs of a Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti but I’ve misplaced the book while cleaning, and today started an audio book edition of The Reddening by Adam Nevill |
Butkuiss
10.21.24 | “The three body trilogy is awesome for any of you that like sci fi.”
I’ve considered it but I am much more drawn to Mundane SF (or, alternately, the super psychedelic stuff) than I am rubber forehead stuff. I guess there’s no way to really know without reading it if I’ll vibe it though… |
Winesburgohio
10.21.24 | oh shit i didn't see but 6 is one of my favourite books of all time and a huuuuuuuuuuuuge influence on yours truly |
Butkuiss
10.21.24 | Also regarding 2: I still think about Bunny, even decades after reading! |
Get Low
10.21.24 | Is this going to be the new books thread now? |
ThyCrossAwaits
10.21.24 | I’ve been obsessed with the books of TJ Klune recently. Wonderful gay-ass workings of tales about death and belonging and ugh…I love “young adult” books sometimes. They’re just so wonderful. |
zakalwe
10.21.24 | Read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold which was outstanding.
Have started Lonesome Dove which at the minute is a stunner. |
gabba
10.21.24 | My all-time favorite is probably The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai. Very beautiful and very sad, really moving.
Otherwise I really dig Charles Bukowski, all his novels are ace, and the same goes for Michel Houellebecq.
I second The Corrections by Franzen being very good if one’s into these types of family novels. This list looks great, thanks @Observer, will check many books for sure!
@zakalwe it’s funny that I’ve precisely got The Spy… on my read list coming up next, can’t wait to start, haven’t read le Carré so far!
|
unclereich
10.21.24 | just finished Bag of Bones by Stephen king, the supernatural elements of it were cheesy but loved the prose. solid 7/10. Reading The Mephisto Waltz rn, very short and kind of predictable but enjoying it. On deck is Ghost Story by Peter Straub. |
Observer
10.21.24 | A lot of new stuff, thank you! I'll def check out The Melancholy of Resistance and others here are on my tbr and ill report back on whatever I check out
For anyone that likes those mindfucks like infinite jest and gravity's rainbow, louis armand's The Combinations is really worth looking into. |
bludngorevidal
10.21.24 | just finished my fourth run of Ulysses, slammed through two Nabokovs (Invitation to a Beheading and Transparent Things) as digestifs. now reading Toni Morrison's jazz. |
bludngorevidal
10.21.24 | also read if on a winter's night a traveler recently. i liked it, not sure i'd say it's the best metafiction i've ever read, but certainly it made me reflect on my preferred reading style/what i look for in a book in a sort of epistemological way i haven't done since i was a kid, so big points for that |
Feather
10.21.24 | @artificial and @butkuiss highly recommended. Idk what you mean by rubber forehead, I’m not much of a sci fi guy. My favorite part of three body is when it gets more political and when it starts reading almost text bookish explaining new technology or science theory. The book is less about the characters and more about the situation. |
Feather
10.21.24 | Also I need to download 4 audibles before the end of this month so I will be looking through all these recs and taking some. Thanks for making this thread :-) |
Butkuiss
10.21.24 | @feather “rubber forehead” is a pejorative term for SF where “alien” species look and act human and speak English. Named for the low budget episodic space operas like Trek where there are 200 different species of alien, but they’re all basically humanoid and only differentiated by forehead/facial prosthetics and body paint. As opposed to the aliens in say Arrival or Solaris, which are portrayed as so different to humans biologically and psychologically they’re basically incomprehensible to us. |
Feather
10.21.24 | @Butkuiss well then in that case I dont believe the Three Body is a rubber forehead series! |
Voivod
10.21.24 | -- You read or looked into C Palahniuk's most recent book from this month?
Had no idea Palahniuk issued new stuff. Recently bought a book of his short stories, but I wasn’t overwhelmed. Fight Club, Survivor, Choke, and Haunted are worth the while, though. |
Observer
10.21.24 | Yeah the new one is supposed to be quite funny, voivod. Also, I read the first of 3 body trilogy but it didnt snag me like i hoped. Bummer cause everyone that ive seen online loves those books. It was quite different.
@feather, i coulda swore we had a book thread on sput for a long time with 100s of comments over the years. But i havent seen it bumped in ages. Anyway, welcome! Let us know if you enjoy any that you pick |
NexCeleris
10.21.24 | Almost done with Library of America's Vonnegut collection. Took me all year, basically.
Ordered Quarantine by Greg Egan after Butkuiss recced it, so that'll be next. I'm a sucker for Butkuiss recs (and also into gritty 80s and 90s cyberpunk). |
Feather
10.21.24 | @observer I remember there being a different thread in the past, but I alos dont recall seeing it in quite a bit. I will let yall know what I end up taking from here. |
rabidfish
10.21.24 | I'm re reading the life of lines by Tim Ingold. Also reading spinal catastrophe by Thomas Moinyhan. Both are non-fiction. Haven't read a good novel in a while, been meaning to get into Moby Dick at some point. Never read it. |
Feather
10.21.24 | This thread appears to be iteration 3
Books thread 1: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/list.php?listid=171605
Books thread 2: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/list.php?memberid=1117664&listid=205187 |
Observer
10.21.24 | Oh gotcha. Didn't know a second had been made.
I just finished Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham and it was good! 4/5. I'll read the next in the series. Kinda looks like a Gone Girl ripoff but is more of a police, psyche thriller. Been enjoying those lately. |
hel9000
10.21.24 | “been meaning to get into Moby Dick at some point. Never read it.”
I absolutely loved Moby Dick, really wasn’t expecting it to be as weird and beautiful as it was.
Currently finishing up Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald, got really into him and Hemingway over the last few months. |
Observer
10.21.24 | I should read more Hemingway. I've only read old man and the sea. It's solid |
hel9000
10.21.24 | His complete short story collection is probably my favourite out of the lot. Would highly recommend it. |
gabba
10.21.24 | ^^^ completely agree |
Winesburgohio
10.21.24 | one of the best afternoons of my year was spent devouring Tokarczuk's 'Empusium', she's really rather fantastic |
Butkuiss
10.21.24 | Moby Dick is horrifying and hilarious, essential read. Also @Observer A Farewell to Arms is my favourite Hemingway; there’s a sense of despair in that one that just captures me. |
Rowan5215
10.22.24 | doing Stephen King's Dark Tower series again with the other stuff he's written that ties in all included so like 20 books plus. gonna be a multi year project lfg baby |
Observer
10.22.24 | Didnt realize there were more than the main books for that series. A coworker tells me he re-reads the whole thing every few years, its that good to him. Yet another on my massive tbr pile And thanks wines! ill add that. never heard of her.
I also have moby dick and one day ill try Ulysses. Need a guide tho lol |
artificialbox
10.22.24 | just finished Solaris and wow…I can’t believe how many people on goodreads thought the ending wasn’t satisfying. If’s so good it makes you completely recontextualize the entire story. |
EphemeralEternity
10.22.24 | Good books died with the epic of Gilgamesh |
arthropod
10.22.24 | Curwood and Tolkien have done well tho. |
Egarran
10.22.24 | Too much drama in fiction, like 2/3 in, ooh the valley of despair, daring today aren't we mr. author, oh what do you know, they made it anyway AND learned a valuable lesson, give me a break nerd. |
renegadestrings
10.23.24 | Angela’s Ashes |
Rowan5215
10.23.24 | "Didnt realize there were more than the main books for that series"
depending on how deep down the rabbithole you go almost every King book is connected in some way lmao. you can definitely still read the 8 DT books and have a good time but imo throwing in The Stand, Salem's Lot, his books with Straub and a few short stories is what really elevates it to his magnum opus. but also, any excuse to reread Stand i'll take lol |
bludngorevidal
10.23.24 | @Observer if you wanna dive into Ulysses I can recommend a couple of helpful guides :) |
Voivod
10.23.24 | -- His complete short story collection is probably my favourite out of the lot. Would highly recommend it.
Didn't know that there was a compilation of Hemingway's short stories, very interesting, let's hope that there is a translation in Greek, although I don't mind reading in English. |
menawati
10.23.24 | I'm re-reading 1984 because Orwell's vision is now coming true in the UK |
Winesburgohio
10.24.24 | re: Ulysses I think the best way is to just go in raw, i imagine a guide would sap a lot of the fun out of it and it's partly designed to be an individual experience. once you succumb to the notion there are bits of it you won't understand it turns into a thrillride, and it's more accessible than often portrayed !! |
EyesWideShut
10.24.24 | Shit I thought this was the other book list |
VlacDrac
10.24.24 | Glad to see Calvino on the list. We need less Anglo-centric authors. |
bludngorevidal
10.24.24 | to each their own @Winesburgohio. i hit ulysses raw my first go-around and was unbelievably confused. had a lot more fun with it on attempts #3 and #4, where the guides unlocked worlds of meaning for me.
that said, i def agree that it's more accessible. have had a much harder time with other works like gravity's rainbow for ex |
Observer
10.25.24 | Yeah. I think this upcoming attempt at gravity's rainbow will be my 4th due to hitting a wall each before. Some guy drew an illustration companion for the book that has a drawing for every page of the novel. That'd be interesting to read along with.
Started The Last House on Needless Street today, amongst other books at the moment. Saw that one mentioned in here. Rec me mysteries if anybody has some good ones. |
Comatorium.
10.25.24 | Bout 3/4 through It. Starting the troop next. Grabbing a copy of tender is the flesh today |
kildare
10.25.24 | After failing to get established as a non-fic writer, I decided to try my hand at a novel. But I don't know anything about the mechanics of novels, so I'm immersed in the kinds of books I WOULD have read if I'd majored in English. (And also some mass-market "dummies-style" books. They're less sophisticated but WAY more nuts-and-bolts).
It's had a curious effect, though: I can't read a novel lately without analyzing the machinery, and it "takes me out" of the story. So I gave up trying to read the good stuff and went to my local used book store, asking for the most mediocre, clumsily-written books he had in the shop. He said it was possibly the weirdest question he's ever been asked, so that was cool (I'll make my mark on the world yet!). So lately I'm not really "reading" as much as dissecting with highlighters and colored pens. It's kind of a weird place to be, psychologically. Hopefully it'll blend back in someday and I can get back to just surrendering to the narrative
Anyone reading this ever written -- or tried to write -- a novel? Or screenplay, for that matter. They share some elements |
DadKungFu
10.25.24 | I like this |
Egarran
10.25.24 | Re: 5 there is The Locked Room by Sjöwall and Wahlöö. It's standalone but also part of a series so if you're into 60's Sweden and social realism (who isn't) check it out. |
Observer
10.27.24 | Thank you! Got an anthology in the mail this week of locked mysteries so im set for a bit ha.
This one is obscure sorta, but has anyone heard of Peter Weiss' The Aesthetics of Resistance? There's 3 volumes, the 1st two are out in english right now, and the last one is coming to English this january. Supposed to be fantastic.
kildare, I have tried to write a novel, yes. I got over 200 pages but realized it was awful and tossed it ha. I do want to try again actually! Though an initial waste, I did have fun writing what i did of that book. |
Hawks
10.27.24 | Currently reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It's a long journey but its been engaging pretty much the entire time and I'm on page 505 of 845 so can't complain lol. |
Observer
10.27.24 | Got that one on sale at chirp audiobooks for around $5, heard great things about it |
Hawks
10.27.24 | Starts off kinda slow but the storyline rules. At least so far lol. |
Egarran
10.27.24 | For budding authors I recommend Vonnegut's 8 rules for writing short stories:
https://londonplaywrightsblog.com/kurt-vonneguts-8-rules-for-writing-for-the-playwright/ |
kildare
10.27.24 | ^^ Looks worthwhile Egarran. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm into at the mo |
kildare
10.27.24 | Observer, my uncle wrote several novels, and the first is hands down absolutely the worst thing I have ever read in my life. I very much doubt that anyone who enjoys electronic music as much as you do could write anything truly "awful"!
But I'm pretty self-critical too. Honestly, my expectations for success are about 0.00000001 above zero. Midlife is pretty late to expect to produce anything that's really dynamite. There are exceptions, but usually great art is created -- and Nobel prize-level work in physical science is achieved -- by twenty- and thirty-somethings. And even if I was younger, and better trained in academic English, it’s still like trying to hit it big in acting or music; only around 1.5% of novels that publishers read actually make it to print, and of those hardly any of them earn any $$$ to speak of.
And I found those statistics from sites posted BEFORE chatGPT came on the scene, so it’s pretty much hopeless.
Still, while what I've written thus far is TOTALLY unpublishable at the moment, the experience has, like you said above, been fun and engaging, and it’s really helped me to look at novels more critically than I ever could before. In the end I'm hoping it will change the way I look at narratives in general, once I get over this uninspiring textbook phase. In the past such experiences were a tiny bit like very, VERY low-level acid trips: After the transformation occurred, I tended to look at the world a little differently. Not as drastic of a change in perception as psychedelics afforded me in my teens and twenties, but still totally worth the effort in my nerdy mind.
In fact, I'm so immersed in narrative criticism that at the rate I'm going I'll probably never finish the damn thing. But my niece actually finished her novel and tried -– and failed ☹ -- to interest a publisher, and she’s promised to finish my work if it inspires her own muse. So the project has given me something to pass on to posterity, once my actual genes are consumed by fire during my body’s ultimate cremation. It’s not heredity, but it kind of feels that way.
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kildare
10.27.24 | BTW Observer, I'd be happy to check out your old novel if you still have it and can get it to me somehow. Faulkner said "read everything," and I'm currently on the lookout for the greatest variety I can find. And like I said there's no way yours is the worst I've read. My uncle had a PhD in sociology, and figured -- he actually said this in so many words -- that his doctorate made him an expert in everything else, apparently never considering that something as complex as literature would have it's own body of theory. It was a romance novel, and he self-published his name as "John Doe, PhD." I kid you not.
Just from reading your comments above I rather doubt you approached it with that level of arrogance |
kildare
10.27.24 | @Egarran: Have a Favorite Vonnegut? I have Slaughter, Cradle and Hocus Pocus (thus far unread) on my shelf, but critics seem to be sour on the last one, so don't know if I'll bother |
Observer
10.27.24 | Thoughtful words, kildare, and thanks for your interest! Unfortunately, that novel, titled Fallon, is lost in the internet archives somewhere. At the time, ten years ago, I had been saving and sending drafts of it to an old email address, an address I deleted like six years ago sadly. The reason for that is because my bank account got hacked at the time and i lost all my then-savings, so... being paranoid, I deleted my email and facebook accounts soon after, which was probably overkill. But... I was distraught. Anyway... yeah that book is gone, but I appreciate the interest in it! Two people read it back then, or said they did, and while flawed they said its premise was strong and original. Since it's been so long I'd love to read it again myself, actually. Curently, I doubt ill ever complete anything, but I do have another plot id love to pen soon! |
Egarran
10.27.24 | >Have a Favorite Vonnegut?
I have only read Cradle and Slaughterhouse (and his short story collection Bagombo Snuff Box (where I found that list)), but those two are great. I like him a lot and hope to read all his books. |
kildare
10.27.24 | Aw man, that sounds like a contender for some of the worst days of your life. Not as bad as romantic turbulence maybe, but financial disasters are freaking stressful. Sounds like I unwittingly dug up some ghosts! Sorry about that
Anyway, yeah, I totally recommend contemplating novel writing if you're thinking about writing again. It sounds like you'll have to overcome a lot of darkness to get started, but once you get going it might be worth the struggle. At the moment for me it's better than any other past time I've tried before. Not nearly as frustrating as failing at non-fiction has been. Not frustrating at all, actually. Novel writing makes more sense than writing non-fiction as a hobby, somehow. Like, even though the characters are make-believe, creating them and "interacting" with them and seeing into their minds is like "socializing" with them in some weird, metaphysical way.
Anyway, let us all know if you produce something you think is readable! |
kildare
10.27.24 | Yeah, Egarran, Vonnegut is definitely one I want to spend time with. I read one of his short stories and am totally stoked to get started, but have always just had other stuff to read.
But now I'm thinking I should read what critics consider his "worst" (like Hocus Pocus, and it seems to me Galapagos is in there too) back to back with his "best" and study the differences. See if I can find what the critics have to bitch about. When I started this project there was no way I would be able to verbalize why I don't like a novel other than "I didn't like it." Hopefully I'll be better equipped to see what the problem is
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kildare
10.28.24 | I'd be curious about other Vonnegut fans' thoughts on the rankings of his novels. |
Feather
10.28.24 | Downloaded the will of the many based on this thread and Hyperion based on the OG book thread. Will report back what I think. |
EyesWideShut
10.28.24 | Currently reading In Hazard by Richard Hughes.
Bout a steamship caught in a monster hurricane, something about these sea stories just feels epic. Hope its a good one cause the book cover is beautiful. |
Romulus
10.28.24 | secret history is a personal fave of mine - hope all is well : ) |