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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Oct 26, 2020 17:20:32 GMT
always feels good when my library picks up licenses for OverDrive titles I've recommended. Only 3 of 28 so far, but small victories
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Post by Mattsby on Oct 27, 2020 1:04:25 GMT
This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers - Jeff SharletThis book is pretty remarkable - photographs and accompanying essays that focus on things that often happen really late at night - dead end jobs, too much coffee, overdoses, people who don't sleep because they can't or won't and who may not wake up.........the people in the daylight have a darkness of their own or its forced upon them. I don't read new books much but I can't imagine there's been a more up to the minute book or a more Punk Rock book - all people who are on the fringe and the photos are haunting alone......feels like an instant classic and a unique one........and it spans the globe too.....it feels simultaneously hopeful.......hopeless......dangerous.......prophetic. I wouldn't of known about this book without your post - so thanks Pac! I just finished it and loved it. I dig the snap-bio form - Paul West did it wittily in Portable People, except that was for famous figures, here it's meaningful bc the subjects are chance encounters, it can be anybody, and it's all thru Sharlet who writes really well, sort of lyrically in how he presents the exchanges. And I like how open he is about himself, with emotional bookends on his family/health. By just engaging with these night people (the frightened and the frightening, as he puts it) and listening to them, he creates in the regular what feels like rare access. Compassion in the wild, in the dark. "Darkness isn't the absence of light, it's the presence of ink." To him a truth that is self evident, there's never nothing in something, or someone.
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Post by cheesecake on Oct 27, 2020 1:29:59 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Oct 29, 2020 5:25:27 GMT
Bob Woodward's Fear. Only reading it so I can get to the sequel. Crammed with information. A refresher course on the early stages of Trump's cosmically incompetent and disorganized administration, including lots of incendiary put-downs and internal feuds. Sounds brutally hectic. I remember Trump's disavowal of Sessions but didn't know "mental retard" was thrown around. Also profiles hypocrite-to-the-stars Lindsey Graham's early relationship with the president as one of the many, maaaany people around trying to reign in Trump's constant attention-whoring. Nothing revolutionary so far. None of them knew what they were doing and everyone was pissed off and stressed out, no shit! a little over halfway done...
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Post by Sharbs on Oct 29, 2020 7:46:54 GMT
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes -Books are more immersive than other mediums due to having to create the images yourself and it was tough to get so involved in a story about a time-traveling serial killer where some of the murders are told in graphic nature. This story also revolves around a victim of this killer who got away and the detective on their case who try to track this killer in the wrong decade. I liked this quite a bit. fun little story while I was listening to the audiobook: There are a handful of 10 foot (roughly) sculptures of a t-rex in the fronts yards spread out in the neighborhood. I was walking at night listening to this and trying to outpace the rising winds of an incoming thunderstorm and since this book along with the winds got me in a heightened mood, one of these dinosaurs caught my periphery and I jumped so far I leapt across the boulevard and into the street.
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Post by jimmalone on Oct 30, 2020 8:50:55 GMT
Ross Macdonald - Sleeping Beauty
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2020 17:50:17 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 1, 2020 18:52:54 GMT
Fear is pretty good. Picks up in the second half I think, especially with the Charlottesville race violence which is the highlight of the book. You can sense the discomfort and disbelief of those in Trump's staff who were forced to watch with shock as the president couldn't even pull off a simple mollifying clarification repeatedly across multiple statements because it would've meant conceding a mistake or blunder. Trump can not ever be wrong, and so he couldn't even disavow white supremacy convincingly for more than five minutes, a failure that sent shockwaves through his administration. The book ends with a bang with a description about Trump from his former lawyer and loyal acolyte John Dowd: "You're a fucking liar." And that's how you end a book. next up is the Alex Trebek memoir!
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Post by TerryMontana on Nov 1, 2020 19:50:56 GMT
Finally I got my hands on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I've been wanting to read this for a very long time and I just got started. It's my first Agatha so I'm very curious and excited. Ok, I really liked this. My first Agatha and many people say it's her best. I enjoyed the whole story up until the end but I have to say I wasn't satisfied with the plot twist (the revelation of who the killer was). Actually, it was pretty obvious that if these people were not alone on the island, someone would have faked his death.
And that was the case. Overall I enjoyed it and I'm thinking of reading some other Agatha books, so feel free to suggest!!
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Post by jimmalone on Nov 2, 2020 9:56:13 GMT
Finally I got my hands on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I've been wanting to read this for a very long time and I just got started. It's my first Agatha so I'm very curious and excited. Overall I enjoyed it and I'm thinking of reading some other Agatha books, so feel free to suggest!! Her Poirot novels are the best.
My favourites include: Murder on the Orient Express The ABC Murders Cards on the Table After the Funeral Death on the Nile Poirot's Christmas Death in the Clouds
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Post by TerryMontana on Nov 2, 2020 11:44:31 GMT
Overall I enjoyed it and I'm thinking of reading some other Agatha books, so feel free to suggest!! Her Poirot novels are the best.
My favourites include: Murder on the Orient Express The ABC Murders Cards on the Table After the Funeral Death on the Nile Poirot's Christmas Death in the Clouds
Nile and Orient, I've seen the movies! No real reason to read them as I already know the whole story. I'll try some of the others.
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Post by jimmalone on Nov 2, 2020 11:58:28 GMT
Her Poirot novels are the best.
My favourites include: Murder on the Orient Express The ABC Murders Cards on the Table After the Funeral Death on the Nile Poirot's Christmas Death in the Clouds
Nile and Orient, I've seen the movies! No real reason to read them as I already know the whole story. I'll try some of the others. Orient is one of the few exempts, where the movie really is on par with the novel. Talking about the 1974 version of course. One of the finest literary adaptions I've ever seen.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2020 18:54:35 GMT
Started today, and already halfway through. Reads like fiction. I strongly recommend The October Country by Ray Bradbury for fellow short story and macabre lovers.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 3, 2020 4:27:41 GMT
I strongly recommend The October Country by Ray Bradbury for fellow short story and macabre lovers. as someone who loved Bradbury as a teen and read a lot of his short fiction, I'm surprised I never got around to this one
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Post by TerryMontana on Nov 3, 2020 6:17:50 GMT
Isaac Asimov, I Robot.
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Post by jimmalone on Nov 3, 2020 12:17:41 GMT
Started today, and already halfway through. Reads like fiction. I strongly recommend The October Country by Ray Bradbury for fellow short story and macabre lovers. Didn't read this, but as an avoid tennis fan (and also writer) I read a lot of articles about tennis and in my opinion Steve Tignor is the best tennis writer there is.
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Post by cheesecake on Nov 3, 2020 20:42:37 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 5, 2020 0:26:43 GMT
cheesecake i just entered a goodreads giveaway for that one!
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 5, 2020 0:53:08 GMT
what I've been reading today to distract myself from the state of this shithole of a country:
- finished the Alex Trebek memoir. Pretty good. The ending had me tearing up but most of it is pretty disconnected and light.
- started Emily Nagoski's Come as You Are which piqued my academic curiosity. Hints at being a scientific inquiry into female sexuality but is clearly a self-help book targeted towards women which isn't what I'm looking for. The Pleasure Gap looks like more what I want.
- started The Terror by Dan Simmons before asking myself... do I really want to read a 700-page book (26 hours in audiobook) about a bunch of dudes being hunted by a giant polar bear... I decided the answer is no. I'm sure there's a lot of great detail and atmospheric horror in the book and I love the survival aspects of the story, but knowing that the crux of the horror comes down to a giant fucking bear... I can't do it. I know where the story is going and I can't do it.
- The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf... aggghhhhh this is confusing. This is probably easier to read but the stream of consciousness style makes it impossible to follow the audiobook. The internal monologues go on forever and if you don't know who's talking or being talked about, the experience becomes like navigating a maze completely blind. If you lose focus for a second you just get very lost. Gave up an hour in. Feel bad about it.
so that's my window-shopping reading experience today. I think for the time being the focus will be on movies, Sex Education season 2, and porn.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 5, 2020 3:00:19 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 6, 2020 16:48:09 GMT
started reading Anne of Green Gables
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Post by jimmalone on Nov 7, 2020 14:31:05 GMT
Sasa Stanisic - Vor dem Fest
Not sure if an english translation exists of this book.
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Post by cheesecake on Nov 8, 2020 23:59:57 GMT
what I've been reading today to distract myself from the state of this shithole of a country: - finished the Alex Trebek memoir. Pretty good. The ending had me tearing up but most of it is pretty disconnected and light. Aw man, I feel like that would be an even harder read now.
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Post by cheesecake on Nov 9, 2020 0:00:19 GMT
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 9, 2020 0:42:24 GMT
what I've been reading today to distract myself from the state of this shithole of a country: - finished the Alex Trebek memoir. Pretty good. The ending had me tearing up but most of it is pretty disconnected and light. Aw man, I feel like that would be an even harder read now. I know, I didn't even realize he died until a couple hours ago. The last section really pulls on your heartstrings. He talks about how he's been spending this time with his family and said he'd know when the time would come to let go. He's been surrounded by love all these months
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