Whatcha reading?

Sweet action for kids 'n' cretins. Marjoram and capers.
Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Kory wrote:
22 May 2023, 2:46pm
Silent Majority wrote:
15 May 2023, 2:51am
31) A Midsummer's Nights Dream - William Shakespeare. Kindle. 1596. I didn't like this one bit. Boring. Unfunny. Tedious, endlessly going over the same ground. Even the writing couldn't make up for the fact that I so solidly failed to give a fuck about the story. Next up: Merchant of Venice.
One of his that really lets the visuals do the heavy lifting.
What about me, Will? The loser reading your words alone in a room 400 years after your death? Why didn't you consider James when mounting your phantasmagorical wonderland, your feast for the senses?
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Kory
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Kory »

Silent Majority wrote:
22 May 2023, 3:22pm
Kory wrote:
22 May 2023, 2:46pm
Silent Majority wrote:
15 May 2023, 2:51am
31) A Midsummer's Nights Dream - William Shakespeare. Kindle. 1596. I didn't like this one bit. Boring. Unfunny. Tedious, endlessly going over the same ground. Even the writing couldn't make up for the fact that I so solidly failed to give a fuck about the story. Next up: Merchant of Venice.
One of his that really lets the visuals do the heavy lifting.
What about me, Will? The loser reading your words alone in a room 400 years after your death? Why didn't you consider James when mounting your phantasmagorical wonderland, your feast for the senses?
You'll just have to imagine the big donkey head gag!
"Suck our Earth dick, Martians!" —Doc

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Finished Blood on the Moon. Um, skip it, don't waste your time. This is Ellroy before he created his 50s hipster, clipped writing style. The prose is conventional to the point of being clumsy and often laughable. The plot, too, is lazy and what would become a cliche. Hero has problems, serial killer has problems and a particular motif (this guy is a poet). Women are the physical victims, but, really, aren't the male hero and killer the real victims, as their history kept them from growing up happy? Killer is caught and the victory is not just justice, but the hero's soul. It's the kind of book that I suspect Ellroy doesn't want to acknowledge now because it reads like the work of a 17-year-old grinding out what he believes is his first for-sure bestseller (e.g., the hero finishes having sex with a woman on her period, looks at his dick, and says "I think I just came blood"). Just awful stuff.

Next tub book:
Image
David Halberstam, The Breaks of the Game. Never read this, but my nephew pushed his copy in my hands saying I'd love it. And I probably will, given how much I love Halberstam's work. It's odd that I haven't read it before. I know my rationale: I don't care about basketball. But that's dumb given how often I've recommended his other stuff and said you don't need to be interested in baseball or the auto industry or Vietnam. Because Halberstam writes about people and how their biographies push them forward and trip them up. The setting is always less important than the interactions of people.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
25 May 2023, 11:41am
Finished Blood on the Moon. Um, skip it, don't waste your time. This is Ellroy before he created his 50s hipster, clipped writing style. The prose is conventional to the point of being clumsy and often laughable. The plot, too, is lazy and what would become a cliche. Hero has problems, serial killer has problems and a particular motif (this guy is a poet). Women are the physical victims, but, really, aren't the male hero and killer the real victims, as their history kept them from growing up happy? Killer is caught and the victory is not just justice, but the hero's soul. It's the kind of book that I suspect Ellroy doesn't want to acknowledge now because it reads like the work of a 17-year-old grinding out what he believes is his first for-sure bestseller (e.g., the hero finishes having sex with a woman on her period, looks at his dick, and says "I think I just came blood"). Just awful stuff.
Oh my God.
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Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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33) I Shall Wear Midnight - Terry Pratchett. Audiobook. 2010. I put this book down - written by the author most important to me - for a long time because it rang with an atmosphere of profound dread in the first third. A anthropomorphic personification of petty intolerance as represented by an eyeless black clad ghost started turning the people of the disc against the witches who, in this universe, are the caregivers for their community. Once returned to, I got into an exceptional story for young adults, albeit one coloured by the sense of terror and injustice you'd expect from a writer slowly dying of Alzheimer's. With jokes. So beautifully well done, while there is another Discworld book which comes after it, albeit one Pratchett got too sick to finish to his satisfaction, this stands as a perfect full-stop.
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Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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34) Japanese Ghost Stories - Lafcadio Hearn. Collected 2019, stories all written prior to 1904. Paperback. Hearn was a well-traveled, upper middle class Irishman who spent time in England, and America (he was in New Orleans in the late-nineteenth century and cool enough with other races to experience the forerunners of jazz) before landing in Japan where he took the form of his own childhood listening to ghost stories to collect that country's gory, gruesome and refreshingly odd folk tales. Lots to enjoy.
Last edited by Silent Majority on 05 Jun 2023, 2:55am, edited 1 time in total.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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New audiobook:
Image
James Reston, Jr., The Conviction of Richard Nixon. Reston helped prepare David Frost for the famous interview, the first opportunity for some kind of trial for Nixon's actions. It's not a very long book (5 and half hours) and anything Nixon is always candy for me.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Gotta get me some of that sweet.
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Is ten times worse than prison


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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Dr. Medulla »

Silent Majority wrote:
04 Jun 2023, 4:24pm
Gotta get me some of that sweet.
Here ya go, my little gumdrop: https://mega.nz/file/tRlU2KIA#o5Hle_Vci ... 27EBoLK_ww
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by tepista »

Silent Majority wrote:
03 Jun 2023, 11:07am
34) Japanese Ghost Stories - Lafcadio Hearn. Collected 2019, stories all written prior to 1904. Paperback. Hearn was a well-traveled, upper middle class Irishman who spent time in England, and America (he was in New Orlean in the late-nineteenth century and cool enough with other races to experience the forerunners of jazz) before landing in Japan where he took the form of his own childhood listening to ghost stories to collect that country's gory, gruesome and refreshingly odd folk tales. Lots to enjoy.
neat, does it have any of the Kwaidan stories, which would be: (lemme google) (I guess I answered myself when I googled, but it could be both)

it is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales, mainly Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

"The Black Hair" (黒髪, Kurokami) was adapted from "The Reconciliation", which appeared in Hearn's collection Shadowings (1900).

"The Woman of the Snow" (雪女, Yukionna) is an adaptation from Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903).

"Hoichi the Earless" (耳無し芳一の話, Miminashi Hōichi no Hanashi) is also adapted from Hearn's Kwaidan (though it incorporates aspects of The Tale of the Heike that are mentioned, but never translated, in Hearn's book).

"In a Cup of Tea" (茶碗の中, Chawan no Naka) is adapted from Hearn's Kottō: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs (1902).
We reach the parts other combos cannot reach
We beach the beachheads other armies cannot beach
We speak the tongues other mouths cannot speak

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
04 Jun 2023, 4:58pm
Silent Majority wrote:
04 Jun 2023, 4:24pm
Gotta get me some of that sweet.
Here ya go, my little gumdrop: https://mega.nz/file/tRlU2KIA#o5Hle_Vci ... 27EBoLK_ww
Hooray! Thanks, will dl tonight
a lifetime serving one machine
Is ten times worse than prison


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Silent Majority
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Posts: 18702
Joined: 10 Nov 2008, 8:28pm
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Re: Whatcha reading?

Post by Silent Majority »

tepista wrote:
04 Jun 2023, 6:27pm
Silent Majority wrote:
03 Jun 2023, 11:07am
34) Japanese Ghost Stories - Lafcadio Hearn. Collected 2019, stories all written prior to 1904. Paperback. Hearn was a well-traveled, upper middle class Irishman who spent time in England, and America (he was in New Orlean in the late-nineteenth century and cool enough with other races to experience the forerunners of jazz) before landing in Japan where he took the form of his own childhood listening to ghost stories to collect that country's gory, gruesome and refreshingly odd folk tales. Lots to enjoy.
neat, does it have any of the Kwaidan stories, which would be: (lemme google) (I guess I answered myself when I googled, but it could be both)

it is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales, mainly Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

"The Black Hair" (黒髪, Kurokami) was adapted from "The Reconciliation", which appeared in Hearn's collection Shadowings (1900).

"The Woman of the Snow" (雪女, Yukionna) is an adaptation from Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1903).

"Hoichi the Earless" (耳無し芳一の話, Miminashi Hōichi no Hanashi) is also adapted from Hearn's Kwaidan (though it incorporates aspects of The Tale of the Heike that are mentioned, but never translated, in Hearn's book).

"In a Cup of Tea" (茶碗の中, Chawan no Naka) is adapted from Hearn's Kottō: Being Japanese Curios, with Sundry Cobwebs (1902).
Yeah, a couple of those!
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Image
David Johnson, The Lavender Scare. Reading this for possible inclusion in my 1950s course this year. Contrary to popular (and most academic) history, Johnson suggests that fear of gays and lesbians in government was greater and more impactful than the Red Scare.

Audio book:
Image
Mark Kurlansky, Ready For a Brand New Beat. Not expecting to get anything new or provocative from this, but Kurlansky is a solid popular narrative historian, so it should be an entertaining enough retelling of early rock n roll and Motown.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Dr. Medulla
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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Audiobook:
Image
Christopher Hitchens, And Yet. A collection of essays from much-missed public intellectual. Someone who never wrote dpwn to his audience—quite the opposite, someone who wished to elevate—so even if he made an unfortunate turn toward neoconservatism in the last years of his life, his prose, wit, and engagement is appreciated. The evisceration he would have performed on Trump and MAGA would have bordered on the orgasmic.

Bedtime:
Image
Zachary Jacobson, On Nixon's Madness: An Emotional History. I'm planning on re-reading Fawn Brodie's psychobiography of the man in the next week or so, so let's do this in parallel.

Also finished Dallek the other day (got distracted by other things, keeping me from completing it earlier). Well worth reading for highlighting the historical antecedents of MAGA nonsense. Yet, in the last couple chapters, which covered the post-Reagan and present dystopia, the work seems forced and rushed, too easily claiming Bircher DNA in everything in the right. Something more subtle would have been more appreciated. The bulk of the book, covering the late 50s, 60s, and 70s, is far more effective (and the connections with today, without be expressed, nevertheless stand out).
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Silent Majority
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Re: Whatcha reading?

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35) Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI. Paul R. Daughtery and H James Wilson. Audiobook. 2018. Very optimistic, suggests a partnership between robots and us. Immediately and inevitably out of date due to the quickening pace of change.

36) No One Gets Out of Here Alive: The biography of Jim Morrison - Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugerman. Paperback. 1979. Considering the introduction starts the book with the highly unpromising admission that one of the authors considered Morrison a God "Or at least a Lord," this was a fair and balanced portrait of a selfish, spoilt kid who could sing and write well and caught the zeitgeist at exactly the right time with the help of his collaborators.
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Is ten times worse than prison


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