What are you reading now?

[Lila Feuer]

I'm on chapter 192 of Berserk. I plan to start reading Jurassic Park soon, as I've only seen the film.

[CyberDreams]

I plan on reading the Doom strategy guide "Doom: Totally Unauthorized Tips & Secrets" when it arrives in the mail. It's just the original version, not the revised Ultimate Doom variation. I'm sure it won't provide me with any tips that i don't already know but it might be an interesting glance at how Doom was perceived at that time, just as most of the strategy guides usually are.

 

Out of the four Doom guides that i own the two official Doom guides seem to contain the most info as well as being written the best (aka The Official Doom Survivor's Strategies & Secrets and Doom II: The Official Strategy Guide). 

 

Now if only i can find a Heretic guide...

[Rince-wind]

Bartkira - a buttload of artists decided to repaint every page of Akira in their style with the added gimmick that all characters and locations are replaced by Simpsons stand ins.

Although the premise is wacky the artists did a good job and to even manage this undertaking is impressive.

[jeroa]

Manufacturing consent by edward herman and noam chomsky

 

in a way its kinda like watching jim sterling videos. you know the stuff they were warning against was legitimate, but those same things have become so normal by now that it is kinda hard to even care about

[Chipper35]

• Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
• E-Government for Public Managers
• Research methods, design and analysis

[hybridial]

The Traitor God - Cameron Johnston

 

Got it recently along with another fantasy novel called The Gutter Prayer. Seems interesting, kind of like a noir piece involving wizards, demons and whatnot. 

[Skeletonpatch]

I've been working my way through The Lord of the Rings, recently started Return of the King. So far I've found myself preferring the events as they're described in the book whenever they differ from the movies, which I guess is to be expected.

 

The fact that I'm reading these books now is kind of an oddity for me, as it's really the first time I've specifically sought out and read a book entirely of my own volition, any books I've previously read have either been recommended to me or I was forced to read them.

[Rince-wind]

It's not fair, David! (Ephraim Kishon) - a collection of satirical short stories, some can get pretty surreal.

One thing to note is that although my version is called "It's not fair, David!" it seems that some copies have different names, not sure why.

[Rince-wind]

Daughter of the Lilies (Meg Syverud & Jessica "Yoko" Weaver) - from the author's about page:

"Daughter of the Lilies is a comic largely about the importance self-worth, the different forms love can take, how it can redeem and empower us, as well as issues relating to anxiety. (There are also unicorns, manticores, ghouls, goblins, cannibalistic elves, dragons, gods, fairies, ghosts, werewolves, demons, angels, and so on.)"

 

 

All Tomorrows (C. M. Kosemen a.k.a. Nemo Ramjet) - In the distant future humanity has successfully colonized the galaxy (with a liitle help from genetic engineering), becoming as powerful as gods. Eventually a bigger fish came along, the Qu, an ancient alien race with mastery over bio-engineering and nanotechnology set out to restructure the galaxy and it's inhabitants in their own vision. They toyed around with humans, turning them into beings unrecognizable from their ancestors, eventually leaving them to their own devices and letting evolution take its' course. All Tomorrows describes the future of these beings.

 

I found the pdf in this thread

 

 

[Redneckerz]

A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami

 

Ive started reading his works beginning of last year and i have been hooked ever since. Norwegian Wood and Kafka On The Shore are more known works, but A Wild Sheep Chase is instantly recognizable as his work. They often feature run of the mill Joe's as protagonists that have a clunky obsession with something or something out of the ordinary.

 

About a magical sheep and a guy from an advertisment company in the 70's forced to look for said magical sheep. To put in perspective: It has over 300 pages and i am already at 215 or so in about 2 hours of reading. Even then, some of the concepts postulated are philosophy lite, as seen in Hard-Boiled Wonderland and especially in 1Q84, his magnum opus.

 

The translation carries a far less imaginative cover, but just look at the Japanese edition:

 

[Guest MIND]

I finished the classic 4 DOOM novels and now I'm onto the Doom 3 novels. Just taking a long ass break from reading.

[zen4040]

I don't read at all. but having bought some special edition of wasteland 2, I have access to a few ebooks. started reading 'all bad things' when I was on a 3 hours long train ride. It's about two scavanger kids discovering a few evangelical tapes or something and then they decide to start their own cult.

[Rince-wind]

Town (Lisa J. Steele) - ever wondered what life was like in 13^th-15^th century Europe? This book covers the basics of what it was like for priests, knights, peasants, thieves etc. to live in a medieval town. It's not super in depth, so it's good for people that just want to dip their toes in this part of history.

 

Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future (Dougal Dixon) - similiar to All Tomorrows, this work of speculative fiction tells a tale of evolution and adaptation during millions of years. In a nutshell, humanity fucks over the planet with pollution and overpopulation and in desperation uses bio-engineering to create subspecies of humans that can live in these hostile environments while also sending some humans to find other habitable planets. Eventually the civilisations on Earth fade away and the animal like human subspecies struggle to survive on the ever changing planet.

 

Edited March 28, 2020 by Rince-wind : 5 mil years in't that much turns out

[Deleted_Account]

Currently reading Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James. If you're into good old fashioned ghost stories than this is for you.

[MassiveEdgelord]

 

The funniest book I've ever read....

[Rince-wind]

The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli) - the infamous "how to be a manipulative asshole" book. It's rather short, with 26 chapters that each talk about a specific element on how a ruler should and shouldn't behave and presenting a real world example at the end, whether historical or from Nic's time. In essence, it tells how ruling is a great balancing act between being kind and compassionate and tyrannical and ruthless. If a man is to forgiving and accomodating he will be treaded like a doormat, thus losing the respect of his followers and the fearlfulness of his enemies. If he's too abusive and reckless, his followers will quickly turn against him and do their best to overthrow him. Some other lessons I remember from the top of my head are:

• Don't hire mercenaries - they don't care about your righteous wars or defending your city from barbarians, only about you paying them. And when the going gets rough they'll flee and leave you alone, because they can't spend their money if they're dead
• Delegate the controversial choices to someone else - there are decisions that no matter what you do will make less popular within a certain group, so it's a good idea to give this responsibility to some lesser officials in your service
• Spend some time living in newly acquired territories - that way you can learn about the surrounding geography for future millitary endeavours, become more popular with the locals and squash rebellions before they get too out of hand

My descriptions are of course shortened and somewhat bastardised so I encourage anyone who's interested in reading the whole thing.

 

Pandora's Crotch: The Dark Novel (darknation) - 

"And the years pile on and on, like ****** at a gangbang.
    Picasso had his blue period. Goya had his black period. On the occasion of my seventeenth birthday, I abandoned school in favour of the pub and threw up on the Wellmeadow war memorial three hours later. This event will mark the beginning of what future historians will undoubtedly refer to as my drunk period."

 

Lovecraft used flowery prose to describe the unsavory and uncaring nature of the cosmos. Darknation uses flowery prose to describe the unsavory and uncaring nature of modern day Scotland. This 2 day long story narrates the protagonist's mission to avoid sobriety by any means necessary. Originally darknation wrote the story with both prose and dialogue but eventually rewrote it to have just the prose, stating that dialogue is an enemy of his. Personally I think this was a good decision, it would be jarring to have these fancy desriptions intermingled with scottish swearing. It is unfinished in its current state, with the first chapter completely missing but I'd recommend it in a heartbeat.

Edited June 25, 2021 by rd. : slur

[Hypnotik]

[Doom_Dude]

Haven't read much in months. Started reading this Greek mythology novel recently.

[kalaeth]

reading one of E.E.'Doc' Smith's Tedric books, Lord Tedric - Alien Realms.

Just picked a book at random last time I was at my old house and brought it with me. Nice fun space opera book so far, nothing particularly good.

Have a pair of Saramago's books to read too but I've been lazy (I really like his books but they tend not to be "easy reading" at all) :D

 

[Master O]

On 9/25/2019 at 6:39 PM, Ajora said:

I wouldn't mind reading The Divine Comedy one day, but I have no idea which version is best. 

 

@Ajora

 

You can read all 3 parts Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso here:  http://www.online-literature.com/dante/

 

Also, I had no idea Samurai Reincarnation was the inspiration for Samurai Shodown.

 

 

[elend]

I am currently reading Dan Simmons' "Hyperion".

[P41R47]

Reading machine here, i have like 2 hours free in between asisting clients on mine newspaper post, so i use the spare time to read.

Right now i'm reading Exemplary Novels by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra who also wrote the universaly acclaimed Don Quixote de la Mancha. Lovely book!

Exemplary Novels is a book from 1613, and tells long short stories, or short novels, about different topics of the time and epoch they were wrote, like gypsy maid that is the love interest of many chars; two youngsters making their way in the life of thief, and so.

By today standars, they aren't much funny or interesting, but when this book was released it was a bestseller boom as no other author before atempted something similar.

 

I'm finding it funny and entertaining.

 

If someone is interested in it, they are kinda like the comedies and tragedies by the great William Shakespeare.

[Chip]

I'm reading this topic right now. 

[Vic Vos]

 

[Gokuma]

I reread the The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft after seeing a BYOB showing of the new movie based on it, The Color Out of Space,  a few months ago before all the shutdowns.

 

I recently read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein.  It's a sort-of sequel to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  Definitely read that book first or it will be way more confusing than it already is.   Both books are hilarious and interesting.   The Moon is the better one.   The Cat is way action-packed and rarely lets up.   Then it gets completely crazy.   Saw unfavorable reviews of it afterwards and most of them only liked the first third and were confused by not having read the Moon is a Harsh Mistress first, but I'm glad I read it.   He also wrote Starship Troopers but I've only seen the movie of it.   James Cameron required the actors to read it though!   Supposedly, that book is credited for popularizing and establishing the archetype of space marines without actually containing the literal term "space marine" in it.

[Woolie Wool]

[taufan99]

Susy Ong's Shakai Kaizo: 100 Tahun Reformasi Jepang 1919-2019 (100 Years of Japanese Reformation). Recommended for those wanting to know how and where Japan has succeeded in society development.

[kalaeth]

10 hours ago, Gokuma said:

I reread the The Colour Out of Space by H.P. Lovecraft after seeing a BYOB showing of the new movie based on it, The Color Out of Space,  a few months ago before all the shutdowns.

 

I recently read The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein.  It's a sort-of sequel to The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  Definitely read that book first or it will be way more confusing than it already is.   Both books are hilarious and interesting.   The Moon is the better one.   The Cat is way action-packed and rarely lets up.   Then it gets completely crazy.   Saw unfavorable reviews of it afterwards and most of them only liked the first third and were confused by not having read the Moon is a Harsh Mistress first, but I'm glad I read it.   He also wrote Starship Troopers but I've only seen the movie of it.   James Cameron required the actors to read it though!   Supposedly, that book is credited for popularizing and establishing the archetype of space marines without actually containing the literal term "space marine" in it.

 

You should also try to find and read The Number Of The Beast, by Heinlen too (and also, but less needed To Sail Beyond The Sunset), it's the actual prequel to The Cat That Walks Through Walls (and get a cat named Pixel.)

And also, if you want to read all of the Lazarus Long stories you'd have to also read.. Methuselah's Children and Time Enough For Love.

 

my favorites are the Cat and the Number tied in second place behind the Moon (love me some Mycroft)

 

 

[SchwTrdLeenW]

I'm reading a non-fiction book about historical serial killers, "historical" meaning before the invention of modern forensical research. It's really interesting to see those people and their actions in the context of their time, especially with regard to their rank in the social hierarchy, as nobles like Gilles De Rais were often protected from being arrested by their peers. Also, the thought of someone going rogue and on a killing spree in the dark, confusing medieval cities and forests, without effective ways to investigate their crimes, to communicate, or to learn about whats going on outside of your little local bubble, is really fascinating and scary to me. Hard to imagine how many of those people never got caught, and how many of their murders weren't linked to one another or even recognized as such.
Edit.: Syntax

[kalaeth]

Philip José Farmer's The Lovers.

 

Religious dystopia in the far future, interesting but nothing _great_.

 

Haven't been reading much this year, but I intend to set my numbers straight starting next week, when I go on vacations. I'm considering what books to take, 'cause I'll be away for almost 20 days and since we are going by train I can't take as many books as I want (I wonder if I can get myself a e-book reader for this occasions?), so I'm probably gonna take "only" some 5/10 big books instead of the "a small book a day" I'd take for a shorter time, since reading on the beach is one of my favorite vacation occupations.