He sadly ended his life aligning himself both with Bush and anti-Zionist causes, pretty f*cked up. His brother is still a rabid hard-right shill every week on TV here 
They don’t make all you guys read the Salinger novel at school? Over here, along with Gatsby and Mockingbird, was pretty much the only American novel the teachers rated. Can see a lot of Holdens on this site in a sense. I wonder if they had arcades back then, which series he’d be into…
I think Catcher in the Rye is one of the most overrated books on rebellion I’ve ever read. The guy ends up in a mental hospital, for crying out loud. He wasn’t rebelling, he was falling apart.
I had to read a portion of Invisible Man for my class a few days ago. It seems interesting enough to maybe pick up the full book. It’s interesting how well it manages to capture all of the prejudice from the time period in which it takes place.
meh, he goes over his reasoning for supporting the war in Iraq in his memoirs, and its well reasoned enough for me. not to say I agree with him. if I got anything out of it its that the situation was very complicated and even in hindsight I’m hesitant to make judgments about it. and yeah, its a trip his brother is so contrary to him.
You could say that’s what rebellion does to people who step outside our comfortable illusion of democracy and equality.
Look at the kids gettin’ sprayed on Occupy, or MLK gettin’ popped. Indeed, look at Mark Chapman, still in prison.
I think Salinger retreated from the world because he could never capture that state of mind again. He did it perfectly in that first shot, which still stands up across the ages, be it the SH shooter cracking up, or some guy on here losing the plot because he ate another bulsh1t Seth combo.
Speaking of Hitchens, I just finished “Mortality”. What struck me was he seemed more distressed with the thought of losing his voice rather than the fear of death itself.
Also one of my favorite quotes from the book, "If I convert it’s because it’s better that a believer dies than an atheist does"
Already checked out A Farewell to Arms; only read a little bit but even with nothing happening just yet, story still moves along so well. Librarian recommended the short stories but that type of format can be either hit or miss for me. I will have to check out Old Man and The Sea next time around.
You can get an entire book of his short stories. That’s what I have. You can buy it here or see if your library carries it. Shit is dense but most are fun to read.
Currently reading Graham Hancocks Entangled. A decent book but I have some gripes with it. It’s a fun concept, but seems to be full of plot holes. The set pieces prop it back up. I’m not sure I like his fiction as much as I generally enjoy listening to him talk. I am looking forward to War God, his new book.
After I finish this I want a sci fi/horror book. I’ve read a lot of Richard Morgans books, Altered Carbon etc. But Id really like a book that takes place up in the stars. Something similar to Alien. A sci fi with monsters/Aliens. Anybody have a recommendation for a book like that?
While reading several books, I took some time out to read Harlan Ellison’s short story I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream. During World War 3, a supercomputer that runs the war becomes self-aware, and wipes out all of humanity save 5 humans, 4 men and 1 woman. It then makes them practically immortal and spends the next 109 years torturing them in every way imaginable.
The premise sounded intriguing, and this short story is considered a “classic”. However, it was ultimately quite disappointing. While written decently enough, the story is simple and shallow. It doesn’t go much into the mental states of its characters and almost completely avoids their backstories, instead simply recounting the various tortures that the supercomputer AM plagues its human victims with. Even there, the description doesn’t feel like anything special. Competent, but nothing more. I liked the ending, but overall, I can’t help but feel that I read an unimaginative albeit dents work.
It’s not bad, but also nothing special in the slightest.
Bumping to give you guys an update of something FG-related that’ll (hopefully) be available this September
Cover-in-progress to “Sheol Must Fall,” an adventure story that takes a ton of cues from games like Street Fighter and Fatal Fury as well as cues from the Protector. The premise is that Areva (center), a kickboxer from Ayutthaya, is traveling the world to find her former boyfriend (left) that has been accused of burning down her village and killing her father. As it turns out, said boyfriend is deeply connected to a Shadaloo-type organization called “Sheol.” This leads her on a World Warrior-type journey around the world that gets her into all kinds of crazy adventures, and winds up becoming a viral sensation as her adventures start to gather the attention of more and more people. As you might gather from the ninja and the mean-looking dude, it takes a lot of cues from fighting game archetypes. We got a boxer from Spain, a pro wrestler from the UK, a Kenpo user from France, and so on and so forth. There’s also going to be interior illustrations, but those are still a work in progress.
Did you play the game by chance?
Ahh, this thread again.
This spring/summer I’ve been reading four books together: Gravity’s Rainbow, Don Quixote, 2666, and Brother’s Karamazov. I’m half way through the first two; GR is fucking mind numbing but fun to read, whereas DQ is an absolute joy. 2666 is interesting so far, nice easy prose style but feels kind of rough (due to translation I guess), but BK is a complete slog: I’m 150 pages in and very little of interest has happened.
this summer for me is going to be The name of the wind and The wise man’s fear
Currently reading Buzz Aldrin’s latest book, Mission to Mars. I’m about halfway thru. Old man is right, space exploration needs to be a global-effort at this point and privatized. It’s the only way for it to be more visible to the public and push humans to the next level. Afterwards, I’m reading Barack Obama’s bio.
I’ve had Don Quixote for about 5 years and still haven’t got around to it. I’m sure I’ll love it, but I have a feeling I’ll have to do a little side reading and possibly brush up on medieval history. Is it pretty clear what to look up, or is relatively detailed knowledge assumed? If I have to learn some background info I want to do it for real and not through some wikipedia style summary. I remember reading Inferno and not really getting much out of it besides Dante imagining his enemies being tortured in hell, probably because I’m not particularly familiar with that time and its politics, and not particularly fond of poetry, especially when translated. Or maybe it’s really not much more than that and terribly overrated, but I’ll give Dante the benefit of the doubt here and assume it’s largely my fault.
Speaking of Don Quixote, I recently read A Confederacy of Dunces and loved it. It’s amazing how many Ignatiuses there are posting online. I’ve probably been him a few times myself.
I have the Edith Grossman translation (complete with intro from everybody’s favourite literary critic Harry B), and it’s extremely readable. Any references to weird medieval shit or ancient texts (which can be important) are footnoted.
Barring it’s obvious importance to the western canon, it’s just fucking fun to read. It’s the stories of a delusional knight and his simple servant getting into trouble. Some of the stuff that happens would not be out of place on Family Guy.
Went to a book sale at the library, picked up one of Janet Evanovich’s books. Going to wait a while before reading it because I’ve got some graphic novels I want to catch up on first.
Has anyone read Jonathan Livingston Seagull?