Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Realmfighter]

I liked it, in a trippy sort of way.

[Vector]

Also, anybody read The Golden Compass? I hated the book, personally. Far too many unanswered questions. If I wanted a mystery, I would read a mystery novel. It's not nice to make a critical plot element completely unanswered as to what it even is.

Read it and loved it ._.  Wonderful voice, wonderful idea, interesting characters...

[Acanthus117]

I liked the whole concept of daemons and stuff.

Has anyone here read The Book Thief? Sad sad sad book ;_;

[Vector]

^ What's it about?  Other than, say, book thieves?

[Acanthus117]

Death is the narrator, and it's set in Nazi Germany.

Odd premise, I know, but Markus Zusak is one of my role models for writing. He's awesome.

[Vector]

Whoa, that's really cool.  I want to check that one out, for sure.

[Acanthus117]

You should.

Another good book by him is I Am the Messenger, about a dead beat underage taxi driver living in Australia. He gets cards in the mail and has to do all sorts of stuff to make his world a better place and shit.

[Aqizzar]

Continuing to slog my way through Plato's The Republic, the Allan Bloom translation.

I love the portrait of the City in the Sky.  There must be order, there must be equality, there must be unity and no division.  The root of strife is desire, and the roots of desire are knowledge and jealousy.  Everyone must have no luxuries, no surpluses, no wealth or even concept thereof.  Everyone must do the one job they are selected from on high for, and be the best at it.  Excess of efficient production will ensure there is never any lack, and if there is any surplus, including a surplus of people suited to a particular task, it must be disposed of.  Everyone must live in common, with no knowledge of family or collective beneath or above the city itself.  And to ensure the warriors fight all the harder, their assigned children will accompany them to war, and the soldiers who distinguish themselves in battle will be the only members of society given the slightest taste of praise or reward.

Everyone sleeps on the floor in one big room, wears no clothes, eats crap food in the dark, works for no good reason, kills off anyone they don't need, and the soldiers carry their children into battle.  Gee, why does that sound familiar?

[ChairmanPoo]

the soldiers who distinguish themselves in battle or artisans who make a nifty earring or toy menacing with spikes of obsidian will be the only members of society given the slightest taste of praise or reward.

corrected

[de5me7]

im currently half way through the roadside picnic by the brothers Strugatsky. Written in Soviet Russia set in Canada. Its a good sci fi (the stalker games are based on it). Part of what i find interesting is what the authors thought canadians would be like. I presume, that being behind the iron curtain they wouldnt know much about canada. I this book, canadians mainly drink vodka, order it by the finger, and have short tempers.

[Il Palazzo]

Oh. I've read this maybe three times already, and somehow managed to miss the setting being Canada altogether. Perhaps it never seemed important for the plot.
Also, Tarkovsky's movie(Stalker) is an interesting, if overly artsy at times, adaptation - you might want to see it.

I love everything by Strugatskys', even though rereading e.g. Hard to be a God would probably strike me as Marry Sue-ish today.
I'd reccommend Snail on a Slope, for wonderfully psychodelic experience, and social commentary in one.

[Akigagak]

Hmm, maybe my friends just have bad taste in books or something. At the very least, the friend that recommended it hated The Great Gadsby.

Also, anybody read The Golden Compass? I hated the book, personally. Far too many unanswered questions. If I wanted a mystery, I would read a mystery novel. It's not nice to make a critical plot element completely unanswered as to what it even is.

You mean Northern Lights.

The name change came about for the terrible movie, because dumbass hollywood producers never read the book before deciding to make a film for it.

Anyway, yes. Good book. I don't know which  'critical plot element' you're talking about, but since it's the first book of three, it could just be something that's explained in either Subtle Knife or Amber Spyglass.

Subtle Knife is short, but also good, and continues taking the same steps into a darker theme that Northern Lights took once the group meets the daemonless child. The first couple of chapters is introducing a new character, who eventually meets Lyra. Then things start getting odd. I won't spoil it, but Amber Spyglass seems very anti-Christian.

[GlyphGryph]

While I think this thread is a fine place to talk about what we've been reading ("Teach Like a Champion." Really good book about useful teaching techniques. Also, some Ruby books. Not exactly literature) I'm disappointed its not really resulted in the whole "everyone reads a book and discusses it thing".

I really like that thing.

So I was thinking while this thread serves its purpose admirably, we should occasionally split off a thread on a single book (or even collection of short stories or something!), agreed upon here, to discuss more in depth.

Mostly because I need a reason to read something I wouldn't normally read.

[de5me7]

Oh. I've read this maybe three times already, and somehow managed to miss the setting being Canada altogether. Perhaps it never seemed important for the plot.
Also, Tarkovsky's movie(Stalker) is an interesting, if overly artsy at times, adaptation - you might want to see it.

I love everything by Strugatskys', even though rereading e.g. Hard to be a God would probably strike me as Marry Sue-ish today.
I'd reccommend Snail on a Slope, for wonderfully psychodelic experience, and social commentary in one.

yeh id like to watch the stalker film, only its £23 quids on amazon, which is extortionate. If i can find a copy for less than a tenner ill get it.

[Vector]

You mean Northern Lights.

Really?  Every copy I've ever seen said "The Golden Compass" on it (only thing that makes sense with the series name of "His Dark Materials").  Different country's naming system, maybe?