Fitzcarraldo
Well-known member
- Nov 12, 2010
- 960
Just finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman which I quite enjoyed. About to start In Europe: Travels through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak
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[Misc] What Book are you Currently Reading?
- Thread starter Lady Buck
- Start date
Ludensian Gull
Well-known member
Just started Walking the Amazon by Ed Stafford. Documenting his journey to be the first man to walk the entire length of the mighty River .
Motogull
Todd Warrior
- Sep 16, 2005
- 9,849
No, but that sounds like a recommendation. Cheers.
Razzoo
Well-known member
Reading The Nix by Nathan Hill. Loving it, just over half way through.
Barham's tash
Well-known member
Mos def.
Premise is a murder investigation in the Third Reich post WW2, which was a score draw, and Hitler isn’t dead.
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Cheeky Monkey
Well-known member
- Jul 17, 2003
- 23,033
Score draw indeed, and with one of the main characters having the surname 'March' I could only think 'Solly' when I read it a couple of years back.
Just started "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K Dick. An alternative history novel based on a similar premise to SS GB in which the Axis powers won WW2 and are ruling a partitioned United States with one area being governed by the Nazis and another area governed by the Japanese with a buffer zone in between. Only just finished the introduction at the moment.
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
I finished reading 'Ready Player One' a few days ago and being very unwell of late and stuck at home it's given me a lot of time to think about why I didn't much like it despite it getting a lot of rave reviews. A word of warning, there's a lot of plot spoilers in what follows and apologies for the length.
Starting with the positives, it's a very easy read, there's some good character development and it zooms along very briskly, there's no chance of getting bored and the author does a great job in not getting bogged down in too much geeky minutiae, no mean feat when the plot is pure geekery. There's some very clever concepts introduced about the future of online computing and the blurring between virtual and real worlds. Friendships based purely in the virtual world are shown to be every bit as real as those outside it - and writing this on an online forum, I think we can all relate to that.
None of that makes up for some pretty huge plot holes, mainly based around the character of the dead billionaire's business partner whose existence is required for the most obvious deus ex machina I've read in years. The explanation of the plot twist - to act as a moderator to ensure the spirit of the Egg Hunt is preserved opens up all sorts of questions such as why was there no intervention on the planet of Ludus when the Sixers prevented anyone else from getting the first crystal? Likewise the battle for the third crystal and the apparent disinterest beyond providing state of the art hardware to the gunters in ensuring that his friend's business didn't fall into the wrong hands. The Sixers even ruined his birthday party yet apart from kicking them out, he took no further action. Why not?
Talking of gunters, the author didn't do enough homework on British slang. He correctly picked up on the phrase 'anorak' but a simple google would have told him about the British pejorative: 'gunt'. The word 'gunter' which occurs frequently quickly becomes as irritating as a blister on the tongue.
Returning to the business partner there's the question of his ability to go anywhere. If he hated the Sixers so much then why did he not give himself access to their files to see what they were up to? We're told that he spied on the 2 main characters from their first meeting. But this was well before their significance became known. How did he know to pick them out of the millions of onliners? And why go to the trouble of inviting them to your birthday party and then ignore them? Aside from this, there's also the ability to be able to buy online usernames and passwords for the biggest corporations in the world and to access their most secure files anonymously. Did no-one have the idea to google parts of the first clue and spot the Dungeons and Dragons reference before Parzival? There's also the question of Aetch's real persona. Could they tick any more right-on boxes?
I saw on the IMDB site the news that Warner had bought the rights to the book before it was even published... and this is the author's first ever novel. It's not unheard of but it does rather suggest the author has friends in very high places or the book was written to order (or both) and it does explain a lot of things. Bear in mind that Hunger Games and Maze Runner film series are at an end and both have been incredibly successful. Also bear in mind, the way that Stranger Things tapped into 80s nostalgia in a way that few other shows/films has ever done. Film companies aren't stupid but neither are they likely to innovate when they can go with a successful formula. So we have the same tired old format: post-apocalyptic world, teenagers from the poor side fighting a faceless, all-powerful corporation seeking world domination, we have some sort of competition that provides the unlikely winner with untold wealth and they want it 80s style.
It also makes clear the purpose of the party/club scene. In the book it adds nothing to the story but we've seen it in The Matrix, we've seen it in TRON and therefore we need it in the film. God knows why but a techno club scene is obligatory in virtual world films.
There's a fair few unintentional ironies with this book/film. The characters in the book think they are on the side of liberty and neutrality but in order to gain any chance of winning the competition, they need an encyclopaedic knowledge of the 80s - music, fashion, films, TV shows, computer games - everything. The OASIS creators are suppressing the ability of people to influence their culture every bit as much as a corporation trying to monetise internet surfing.
The saddest thing about all this is that the 80s was truly a decade of innovation where risks were taken and people looked forward, not back. I can't help but feel that this book was devised in a board room purely to cash in on short-term nostalgia using a tried and tested film template.
Starting with the positives, it's a very easy read, there's some good character development and it zooms along very briskly, there's no chance of getting bored and the author does a great job in not getting bogged down in too much geeky minutiae, no mean feat when the plot is pure geekery. There's some very clever concepts introduced about the future of online computing and the blurring between virtual and real worlds. Friendships based purely in the virtual world are shown to be every bit as real as those outside it - and writing this on an online forum, I think we can all relate to that.
None of that makes up for some pretty huge plot holes, mainly based around the character of the dead billionaire's business partner whose existence is required for the most obvious deus ex machina I've read in years. The explanation of the plot twist - to act as a moderator to ensure the spirit of the Egg Hunt is preserved opens up all sorts of questions such as why was there no intervention on the planet of Ludus when the Sixers prevented anyone else from getting the first crystal? Likewise the battle for the third crystal and the apparent disinterest beyond providing state of the art hardware to the gunters in ensuring that his friend's business didn't fall into the wrong hands. The Sixers even ruined his birthday party yet apart from kicking them out, he took no further action. Why not?
Talking of gunters, the author didn't do enough homework on British slang. He correctly picked up on the phrase 'anorak' but a simple google would have told him about the British pejorative: 'gunt'. The word 'gunter' which occurs frequently quickly becomes as irritating as a blister on the tongue.
Returning to the business partner there's the question of his ability to go anywhere. If he hated the Sixers so much then why did he not give himself access to their files to see what they were up to? We're told that he spied on the 2 main characters from their first meeting. But this was well before their significance became known. How did he know to pick them out of the millions of onliners? And why go to the trouble of inviting them to your birthday party and then ignore them? Aside from this, there's also the ability to be able to buy online usernames and passwords for the biggest corporations in the world and to access their most secure files anonymously. Did no-one have the idea to google parts of the first clue and spot the Dungeons and Dragons reference before Parzival? There's also the question of Aetch's real persona. Could they tick any more right-on boxes?
I saw on the IMDB site the news that Warner had bought the rights to the book before it was even published... and this is the author's first ever novel. It's not unheard of but it does rather suggest the author has friends in very high places or the book was written to order (or both) and it does explain a lot of things. Bear in mind that Hunger Games and Maze Runner film series are at an end and both have been incredibly successful. Also bear in mind, the way that Stranger Things tapped into 80s nostalgia in a way that few other shows/films has ever done. Film companies aren't stupid but neither are they likely to innovate when they can go with a successful formula. So we have the same tired old format: post-apocalyptic world, teenagers from the poor side fighting a faceless, all-powerful corporation seeking world domination, we have some sort of competition that provides the unlikely winner with untold wealth and they want it 80s style.
It also makes clear the purpose of the party/club scene. In the book it adds nothing to the story but we've seen it in The Matrix, we've seen it in TRON and therefore we need it in the film. God knows why but a techno club scene is obligatory in virtual world films.
There's a fair few unintentional ironies with this book/film. The characters in the book think they are on the side of liberty and neutrality but in order to gain any chance of winning the competition, they need an encyclopaedic knowledge of the 80s - music, fashion, films, TV shows, computer games - everything. The OASIS creators are suppressing the ability of people to influence their culture every bit as much as a corporation trying to monetise internet surfing.
The saddest thing about all this is that the 80s was truly a decade of innovation where risks were taken and people looked forward, not back. I can't help but feel that this book was devised in a board room purely to cash in on short-term nostalgia using a tried and tested film template.
tinycowboy
Well-known member
It's a cracking read. Read this when I also bought Moonglow and A Visit From The Goon Squad when I fancied some chunky American novels - three good purchases.
I hope that it's about the band rather than that bunch of losers in SE25.
Cheeky Monkey
Well-known member
- Jul 17, 2003
- 23,033
I binned it after a few pages.. Utter shite (imho). I would urge you to indulge yourself in the copious number of one star reviews on Amazon that perfectly sum up this bag of shite and echo some of what you say, while also saying there is zero characterisation.
Fignon's Ponytail
Well-known member
Gunslinger
All about the life of Brett Favre, HOF QB. One for the NFL fans...a great read so far.
All about the life of Brett Favre, HOF QB. One for the NFL fans...a great read so far.
pearl
Well-known member
Viv Albertine's latest .... can't think what it's called
Johan Cruyff's 
autobio (the English language version!)
autobio (the English language version!)
Marshy
Well-known member
Buzzer
Languidly Clinical
- Oct 1, 2006
- 26,121
Javier Cercas - 'The Imposter'
This is 1 of the 13 longlisted novels on the 2018 Man Booker Int'l list and without doubt one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in years.
It's the true story of Enric Marco who was president of the Spanish victims of the Nazi slave labour camps organisation until he was exposed as a fraud in 2005. It's written from the perspective of the author Javier Cercas who had a long-time fascination with this subject but an extreme reluctance to write about it.
There are many philosophical hooks to this book. For starters, there's the parallels with the greatest character in Spanish literature Don Quixote. It's not just the coincidence of geography or the story of a man inventing a heroic history for himself but also how Enric Marco defended his actions after he was exposed. He claimed that it was all part of a noble lie employed to make public a greater truth and this partly resonated with Javier Cercas as a novelist who also regards himself in part as an imposter.
The logic goes as follows: all art is fiction but a lot of art can be used to reveal or explain a truth. A novelist goes even further and invents a world far removed from their own existence as a form of narcissism. Marco self-justified his actions as being no different from an artist or author.
Under Marco's shambolic leadership, the Nazi camp survivors' group gained huge influence that it had never experienced before. This was partly due to the Spanish reluctance to discuss sending their own countrymen to Nazi death camps and partly that the survivors' group was full of weary and old men and women that didn't crave publicity and couldn't tell the story of what happened as creatively as Marco. The real story of day to day life in the camps was one of terror and hunger but also boredom, routine and a grey mundane existence. Marco gave thousands of talks to schools, colleges et al and although clearly motivated by self-interest, a by-product was that he did a lot of good in getting the subject debated with his flamboyant story-telling.
The author also discusses the moral dilemma of the historian who discovered proof that Marco was a fraud. He was left with the decision of whether to go public with this knowledge just days before the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen camp at which Marco was to share a platfrom with the Spanish PM. Should he go public with the news or not? And if yes then when? The survivors' group's reputation was mortally wounded when the news did break and Marco's exposure ruined them. It's also given fuel to holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists. In hindsight, would it have been better to have kept quiet?
There are further things to consider - Many people knew and for a long time that Marco's stories couldn't all be true. Marco re-invented himself time and again. He simply walked away from 2 marriages. Everyone went along with it though because Marco was charming and people wanted to listen to him and they all allowed him to play the role of Republican war hero/camp survivor. They were all complicit in the lie.
All through the book, the author reveals his angst at continuing to interview Marco, about not knowing for sure what really did happen and the knowledge that Marco doesn't really care that he is a pariah. All he wants is a big fat book written about him and the author is giving him this wish.
Even as a work of pure fiction, the premise would have been extremely thought-provoking. The fact that it's a true story takes it to somewhere else completely. The only criticism I have is that Cercas doesn't really know how to end the book. The epilogue has about 8 chapters in it and each one would have been a fitting end.
tl;dr - read this book. It will blow your mind.
This is 1 of the 13 longlisted novels on the 2018 Man Booker Int'l list and without doubt one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in years.
It's the true story of Enric Marco who was president of the Spanish victims of the Nazi slave labour camps organisation until he was exposed as a fraud in 2005. It's written from the perspective of the author Javier Cercas who had a long-time fascination with this subject but an extreme reluctance to write about it.
There are many philosophical hooks to this book. For starters, there's the parallels with the greatest character in Spanish literature Don Quixote. It's not just the coincidence of geography or the story of a man inventing a heroic history for himself but also how Enric Marco defended his actions after he was exposed. He claimed that it was all part of a noble lie employed to make public a greater truth and this partly resonated with Javier Cercas as a novelist who also regards himself in part as an imposter.
The logic goes as follows: all art is fiction but a lot of art can be used to reveal or explain a truth. A novelist goes even further and invents a world far removed from their own existence as a form of narcissism. Marco self-justified his actions as being no different from an artist or author.
Under Marco's shambolic leadership, the Nazi camp survivors' group gained huge influence that it had never experienced before. This was partly due to the Spanish reluctance to discuss sending their own countrymen to Nazi death camps and partly that the survivors' group was full of weary and old men and women that didn't crave publicity and couldn't tell the story of what happened as creatively as Marco. The real story of day to day life in the camps was one of terror and hunger but also boredom, routine and a grey mundane existence. Marco gave thousands of talks to schools, colleges et al and although clearly motivated by self-interest, a by-product was that he did a lot of good in getting the subject debated with his flamboyant story-telling.
The author also discusses the moral dilemma of the historian who discovered proof that Marco was a fraud. He was left with the decision of whether to go public with this knowledge just days before the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen camp at which Marco was to share a platfrom with the Spanish PM. Should he go public with the news or not? And if yes then when? The survivors' group's reputation was mortally wounded when the news did break and Marco's exposure ruined them. It's also given fuel to holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists. In hindsight, would it have been better to have kept quiet?
There are further things to consider - Many people knew and for a long time that Marco's stories couldn't all be true. Marco re-invented himself time and again. He simply walked away from 2 marriages. Everyone went along with it though because Marco was charming and people wanted to listen to him and they all allowed him to play the role of Republican war hero/camp survivor. They were all complicit in the lie.
All through the book, the author reveals his angst at continuing to interview Marco, about not knowing for sure what really did happen and the knowledge that Marco doesn't really care that he is a pariah. All he wants is a big fat book written about him and the author is giving him this wish.
Even as a work of pure fiction, the premise would have been extremely thought-provoking. The fact that it's a true story takes it to somewhere else completely. The only criticism I have is that Cercas doesn't really know how to end the book. The epilogue has about 8 chapters in it and each one would have been a fitting end.
tl;dr - read this book. It will blow your mind.
Royal baby names