Topic: The Official Bay12 - 52 books challenge 2013 (Read 59053 times)

Lectorog · « **Reply #675 on:** September 25, 2013, 04:41:38 pm »

I've already read Foundation and Foundation and Empire, so it doesn't matter too much to me.

Flying Dice · « **Reply #676 on:** September 25, 2013, 06:00:11 pm »

Quote from: Sappho on September 23, 2013, 03:14:10 pm

Everything written by Asimov is worth reading. And the man did write about nearly everything there is. I borrowed a few of his non-fiction books from a physics teacher back in high school and even they were so interesting I couldn't put them down.

Agreed. I've got a collection of short stories and essays, and they're absolutely marvelous. He's one of the big names of the Golden Age for a very good reason.

About halfway through Ringworld, and I've finally pushed through to Book IV in Paradise Lost.

Tack · « **Reply #677 on:** September 25, 2013, 08:07:11 pm »

Aww. I don't own enough books, and I'm too much of an elitist to get electronic ones.

Lectorog · « **Reply #678 on:** September 25, 2013, 08:31:03 pm »

Quote from: Tack on September 25, 2013, 08:07:11 pm

Aww. I don't own enough books, and I'm too much of an elitist to get electronic ones.

1) go to used book store
2) buy the cheapest books you can find
3) temporarily profit
4) regret not making your desires more specific

Sappho · « **Reply #679 on:** September 27, 2013, 02:28:20 am »

I'm already almost finished with Foundation and Earth and I haven't read Prelude and Forward the Foundation yet, so it's a bit late for me. I did read I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots when I was in university, though, so I've got at least that bit of background.

And that's 39: Foundation and Earth. The first two Foundation books remain my favorites, but I enjoyed this one better than Foundation's Edge. I'll take a short break with an HG Wells book a friend gave me, then I'll move on to Prelude to Foundation...

Vector · « **Reply #680 on:** September 28, 2013, 05:31:07 pm »

Spoiler: 44/52 (click to show/hide)

Still reading Wuthering Heights. Epic of Gilgamesh next.

Helgoland · « **Reply #681 on:** September 28, 2013, 06:00:59 pm »

Quote from: Vector on September 28, 2013, 05:31:07 pm

Epic of Gilgamesh next.

The original? I'd seriously advise against it. Full of (large) gaps, weirdly written, etc etc - picked it up once, never touched it again.

Vector · « **Reply #682 on:** September 28, 2013, 06:13:41 pm »

Part of my education, bro. Just another part of my education.

It's not all that long, anyhow. Beowulf didn't stop me, and Gilgamesh won't either.

Dutchling · « **Reply #683 on:** September 30, 2013, 01:31:35 pm »

Spoiler: 23/52 (click to show/hide)

Finished book #23, Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett.
I liked it. Nothing spectacular bit definitely a very fun book to read.
4/5. I will probably read more Discworld, although there are a lot of other books I want to read first.

Spoiler: 24/52 (click to show/hide)

Finished book #24, I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison.
Well, that was disappointing. The story itself was okayish I guess but definitely not as good as I expected it to be. It was followed by a bunch of really, in my opinion at least, crappy short stories. Even worse is that they all start with these introductions, which are all basically Harlan Ellison masturbating about how awesome his writing is and "fuck those haters I'm so edgy".
2/5.

Lectorog · « **Reply #684 on:** September 30, 2013, 04:21:37 pm »

The title story is pretty good IMO. 4/5 probably. I thought some of his other stories are just as good, but I haven't read too many. Do you remember the names of the others?

I've gotten into the habit reading introductions after the main text, and only if I liked the text. Even good writers have a tendency to make rather bad introductions that don't really introduce anything.

Dutchling · « **Reply #685 on:** September 30, 2013, 04:28:03 pm »

The other stories were Big Sam Was My Friend, Eyes of Dust, World of the Myth, Loneleyache, Delusion for a Dragon Slayer, and Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.

The first two started promising but ended really lacklustre, just as the title story imo. I really did not like the middle two, and the latter two just made no sense whatsoever to me.
I mean, it's painfully clear what he's "hinting" at the whole time, but storywise I did not like any of them.

FearfulJesuit · « **Reply #686 on:** October 08, 2013, 07:02:53 pm »

I know I haven't been keeping track here, but I just finished a novel I truly adored, which isn't a very often occurrence, so I want to cross-post an author recommendation I just wrote on /r/books (because I'm, you know, lazy), for the late 19th-century Portuguese novelist Eça de Queirós. Basically, read this guy.

Quote

Unless you've got a taste for the literature of the Iberian peninsula, or read European 19th-century literature regularly, you've probably never heard of this guy. Neither had I, until I spent a gap year in Brazil, and then supplemented my long, hard slog with the Portuguese original with the recently published translation by Margaret Jull Costa.

So let me say: for some bizarre reason, the rest of us seem to bemissing out on this guy. He's hard to describe, but in some ways he's the 19th-century novelist for people who don't like 19th-century novelists. De Queirós was a Realist (and a very good one at that- indeed, Zola said he was greater than Flaubert), and above all a master satirist of contemporary Portuguese society. He spent much of his life abroad, in Britain and France, which of course were rising industrialized powers...and Portugal had lost its empire, its geopolitical importance, and much of its money; it didn't have much of a bourgeoisie, was tied down by a corrupt Church, and was overseen by a class of aristocrats who weren't good for much except drinking, spending money irresponsibly, and seducing each other. There's a melancholy undercurrent of futility in his work, that of an intellectual and a humanist who desperately wants to drag his native land into the modern age, but recognizes the hopelessness of the project. It's certainly a recurring feature of The Maias: the main characters are all bright young things, studying medicine and writing poetry and embarking upon grand, experimental novels about the New Science and Progress...which they never get around to because they're too busy being dapper young bucks and seducing half of Lisbon. (And, indeed, Portugal kept declining; the Republic established just before the Great War was short-lived, soon to be overtaken by António de Salazar's fascist Novo Estado, and the democracy that replaced his régime has more than its fair share of problems at the moment.) He's a marvelous writer, with a frankness, a precision, an honesty, that is unique to him. The English, French, Russians, even the Realists among them, had an uptightness that de Queirós had little interest in preserving; no corner of Portuguese society- its dissolute elite, its corrupt and ungodly Church, its forgotten people- is safe from the needle of his writing (one passage in Father Amaro quickly but honestly depicts the protagonist sniffing his maid's petticoats...). (Unsurprisingly, de Queirós was controversial in his own time; but today, it's said that the Portuguese don't remember the late 19th century as it was, but as de Queirós wrote it.) His books are long and his sentences aren't short, but there's a quickness, a freshness, to his writing that is absent in, say, Dickens. And you don't even get the excuse that you don't read Portuguese, because the much-acclaimed and brilliant Margaret Jull Costa has translated a number of his books and is working on others.

Read him, man.

Vector · « **Reply #687 on:** October 08, 2013, 08:45:48 pm »

I can see that NaNoWriMo may be interesting for me this year =[

Flying Dice · « **Reply #688 on:** October 11, 2013, 10:46:37 am »

Finally finished something worth mentioning here.

Ringworld
Larry Niven
10/10/13

It's... bizarre, and very typical of older SF, but enjoyable nevertheless, with an interesting core premise.

Dutchling · « **Reply #689 on:** October 11, 2013, 11:11:37 am »

Spoiler: 24/52 (click to show/hide)

Finished book #25, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.
Well, that was awesome. If you haven't read it, read. NOAW!

.
5/5.

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Author Topic: The Official Bay12 - 52 books challenge 2013 (Read 59053 times)

Lectorog

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Flying Dice

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Tack

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Lectorog

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Sappho

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Vector

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Helgoland

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Vector

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Dutchling

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Lectorog

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Dutchling

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FearfulJesuit

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Vector

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Flying Dice

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Dutchling

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