Drish
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Post by Drish on Feb 11, 2021 13:36:08 GMT
A Thousand Splendid Suns really really broke my heart. I literally bawled my eyes out so many times but that last sentence.. omg, I can't even put into words. It's crazy how art forms like books and movies can evoke such strong feelings in you. This book made me feel so grateful about my privileged life, how we groan that life is unfair to us for some petty problems when in fact we have endured nothing in comparison to what we read in the book. I can't get it out of my mind. A definite must read, my god! Yes. All the three first novels of Khaled Hosseini are definitely worth reading. Really heartbreaking stories.
Haven't read "Sea Prayer" yet.
I mean it's been almost a week and I still can't get it out of my mind. Mariam!!🥲 I've been watching a lot of his interviews lately and he's seems to be such a beautiful soul and as much as I loved Suns, I'm definitely taking some time before I read The Kite Runner and And the Mountains Echoed. I take it that those are going to be just as difficult to read.
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Post by Mattsby on Feb 12, 2021 21:48:28 GMT
The Fabulous Clipjoint (1948) by Fredric Brown. "That's the way the rattler took us out of Chicago, both of us laughing like a couple of idiots." Shoutout Viced for the rec. I feel like there should've been more coming of age noirs, maybe they're out there? and just weren't made into movies? Joseph Losey's The Big Night (1951) is the clearest example I know of... based on a novel released the same year as this one, both are city-set and follow a teenager investigating a violent act against their father. Here the kid teams with his uncle, a carny (my casting: Karl Malden) and their dynamic is my fav thing about it especially the great end scene. To make this sound more enticing, it reads almost like Holden Caulfield taking you thru a murder mystery.
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 14, 2021 12:11:56 GMT
Albert Camus - Le premier homme
His last unfinished novel, which is autobiographical and he was writing when he died in an accident. Even more than with his other works we can see in Camus' head here, as it was an unfinished manuscript, full with his comments what he still wanted to elaborate more and at some parts how he might wanted to change the structure. But especially he let us feel how he lived and perceived his childhood and his family, especially the deep love to his mother, who was partly deaf and meant everything to him, since his father died, when Albert was just one year old.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2021 21:06:28 GMT
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 16, 2021 18:43:28 GMT
George Eliot - Silas Marner
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Post by jimmalone on Feb 20, 2021 21:39:37 GMT
Erich Maria Remarque - Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben (A Time to Love and a Time to Die)
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Feb 25, 2021 4:46:04 GMT
Outlander was quite good though I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the show more. But those sex scenes... oof. No TV show can show that stuff. from one really large book to another. next up is Obama's buzzy memoir A Promised Land. His voice is so comforting.
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avnermoriarti
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Friends say I’ve changed. They’re right.
Posts: 2,388
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Post by avnermoriarti on Feb 25, 2021 16:45:37 GMT
Re-reading Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, and I didn't remember how distressing it was to the protagonist that nobody tell him the truth about the plague outbreak. It's all pure euphemism and lies, residents are worried about tourism, no beds in hospitals but nobody talks about it, health officer quits and replaced by someone more "flexible". That theme is as central as his desire/obsession for what Tadzio represents. I'm having a deja vu.... If I recall correctly something similar happens in The Magic Mountain, also by Mann, I'd be curious to read it again but that novel demands complete surrender and I don't think I can...
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Post by TerryMontana on Feb 28, 2021 14:10:18 GMT
Stephen KIng - The Wind Through The Keyhole
It's my second reading.
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Post by stephen on Feb 28, 2021 15:02:42 GMT
Stephen KIng - The Wind Through The KeyholeIt's my second reading. The Wind Through the Keyhole is proof positive that King really needed to not rush the last three Dark Tower books. I understand he was freaked about nearly dying midway through writing them, but Wolves of the Calla and Song of Susannah really don't feel like they're part of the same authorial voice as the first four books, and while I think he regained it by the end of The Dark Tower, it still felt rushed. Wind, though, feels right at home with the first four.
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Post by TerryMontana on Feb 28, 2021 15:31:45 GMT
Stephen KIng - The Wind Through The KeyholeIt's my second reading. The Wind Through the Keyhole is proof positive that King really needed to not rush the last three Dark Tower books. I understand he was freaked about nearly dying midway through writing them, but Wolves of the Calla and Song of Susannah really don't feel like they're part of the same authorial voice as the first four books, and while I think he regained it by the end of The Dark Tower, it still felt rushed. Wind, though, feels right at home with the first four. Agree for books V and VI but I really really enjoyed the last one. Except for... you know, King being there!!
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Post by stephen on Feb 28, 2021 15:32:53 GMT
The Wind Through the Keyhole is proof positive that King really needed to not rush the last three Dark Tower books. I understand he was freaked about nearly dying midway through writing them, but Wolves of the Calla and Song of Susannah really don't feel like they're part of the same authorial voice as the first four books, and while I think he regained it by the end of The Dark Tower, it still felt rushed. Wind, though, feels right at home with the first four. Agree for books V and VI but I really really enjoyed the last one. Except for... you know, King being there!! Oh, The Dark Tower is a fantastic book in its own right, but the journey to get to that book got real rocky by the end. Plus Mordred is so lame .
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Post by TerryMontana on Feb 28, 2021 16:24:54 GMT
Oh, you're right! One of the worst characters in the whole DT saga!!
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Post by DeepArcher on Mar 4, 2021 1:47:26 GMT
Maybe not quite as "timeless" as some say -- it's so firmly entrenched in the culture/society of 1860s Russia, and is so reference-heavy that it bogs the whole thing down a bit (footnotes certainly help, but only so much). Definitely felt that barrier to my appreciation for it, but I still quite liked it. Obviously influential (and yes timeless) in its focus on the psychology of a crime/killer rather than the procedure behind "law and order" ... The tile of the novel (and a lot of the plot summaries you'll see tbh) imply a much more procedural/investigative story, but it's really not that at all. A much more complex and interesting look at the psyche not just of its main character but the state of mind and condition of an entire country, really... It branches off into so many different narrative lines that I really wasn't expecting, and it can feel a bit detrimental to the pacing, but they're all also really fascinating in how they work together to paint the portrait that Dostoyevsky wanted to convey. A mammoth of a read that took me awhile to get through; I poorly timed when I started it, then got busy with school about halfway through, had much less time to read but still stuck it out to the end. Feels like one that'll need a revisit once there's less stuff on my mind (whenever the hell that might be), I can see my appreciation of it would likely deepen over time.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Mar 4, 2021 1:52:35 GMT
Maybe not quite as "timeless" as some say -- it's so firmly entrenched in the culture/society of 1860s Russia, and is so reference-heavy that it bogs the whole thing down a bit (footnotes certainly help, but only so much). Definitely felt that barrier to my appreciation for it, but I still quite liked it. Obviously influential (and yes timeless) in its focus on the psychology of a crime/killer rather than the procedure behind "law and order" ... The tile of the novel (and a lot of the plot summaries you'll see tbh) imply a much more procedural/investigative story, but it's really not that at all. A much more complex and interesting look at the psyche not just of its main character but the state of mind and condition of an entire country, really... It branches off into so many different narrative lines that I really wasn't expecting, and it can feel a bit detrimental to the pacing, but they're all also really fascinating in how they work together to paint the portrait that Dostoyevsky wanted to convey. A mammoth of a read that took me awhile to get through; I poorly timed when I started it, then got busy with school about halfway through, had much less time to read but still stuck it out to the end. Feels like one that'll need a revisit once there's less stuff on my mind (whenever the hell that might be), I can see my appreciation of it would likely deepen over time. Have you read anything else by Dostoevsky?
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Post by DeepArcher on Mar 4, 2021 2:05:42 GMT
Maybe not quite as "timeless" as some say -- it's so firmly entrenched in the culture/society of 1860s Russia, and is so reference-heavy that it bogs the whole thing down a bit (footnotes certainly help, but only so much). Definitely felt that barrier to my appreciation for it, but I still quite liked it. Obviously influential (and yes timeless) in its focus on the psychology of a crime/killer rather than the procedure behind "law and order" ... The tile of the novel (and a lot of the plot summaries you'll see tbh) imply a much more procedural/investigative story, but it's really not that at all. A much more complex and interesting look at the psyche not just of its main character but the state of mind and condition of an entire country, really... It branches off into so many different narrative lines that I really wasn't expecting, and it can feel a bit detrimental to the pacing, but they're all also really fascinating in how they work together to paint the portrait that Dostoyevsky wanted to convey. A mammoth of a read that took me awhile to get through; I poorly timed when I started it, then got busy with school about halfway through, had much less time to read but still stuck it out to the end. Feels like one that'll need a revisit once there's less stuff on my mind (whenever the hell that might be), I can see my appreciation of it would likely deepen over time. Have you read anything else by Dostoevsky? Not yet! Dostoyevsky was always really intimidating to me, and honestly most of the reason I finally picked up a copy of this is because I found the artwork on that edition to be so beautiful (which is the one that I put in my post). Looking forward to reading more of him, next time I'm in the mood for something long and dense.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Mar 4, 2021 2:13:11 GMT
Have you read anything else by Dostoevsky? Not yet! Dostoyevsky was always really intimidating to me, and honestly most of the reason I finally picked up a copy of this is because I found the artwork on that edition to be so beautiful (which is the one that I put in my post). Looking forward to reading more of him, next time I'm in the mood for something long and dense. I haven't read Crime and Punishment, but The Brothers Karamazov is my favorite novel ever. That one's also a beast, and it took me several months to get through it because I also got busy with other things while reading it, but it was definitely worth it in the end.
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Post by wilcinema on Mar 4, 2021 11:14:34 GMT
Dostoevskij is always good. Memories from the Underground is his most underrated work, imo.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Mar 10, 2021 7:21:00 GMT
For Christmas, I got Jerry Seinfeld's new book which is a collection of all his stand-up material over the course of his whole career. It's organized by decade, so you can see how he progressed as a comedian starting from the 1970s until today (it even has current stuff on the pandemic). On the page, the jokes are formatted in a way that looks almost like poetry where you can get a sense of the cadence and timing of his delivery. I've basically been making my way through it by reading aloud a couple bits every day, trying to do my best Jerry impression. I'm still on his 1970s stuff, which isn't always gold, but there are still a lot of laugh-out-loud bits. He's said that even he doesn't always love his earlier stuff, but included it anyway to be fair to his younger self since it's what got him to where he is now. I've now made it to the 2000s stuff, and it's interesting how there's not only a clear shift in tone, but also in format. Most of his bits from earlier decades are pretty short one-pagers, but now you get multiple pages of long monologues and hilarious rants (might have to do with him doing longer sets as he got more famous). The material also takes on more of a curmudgeonly tone post- Seinfeld and is often very Boomer-y in the way he complains about technology, social media, young people, etc. I actually find myself laughing more consistently at his more recent material because there seems to be more of a cynical edge to it. Looking forward to the 2010s stuff!
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speeders
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Post by speeders on Mar 10, 2021 17:02:32 GMT
The Chain.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Mar 11, 2021 0:23:12 GMT
A Promised Land was wonderful. Can't wait for vol. 2 next up, something mercifully shorter. Alex Michaelides's debut psychological thriller and Goodreads award-winning The Silent Patient
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Post by stephen on Mar 11, 2021 4:10:26 GMT
Adrian McKinty is a fantastic writer and The Chain just hits the beats of a cinematic thriller so well. His Sean Duffy novels are excellent as well.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Mar 21, 2021 18:18:08 GMT
The Soul of a Woman, the recently published memoir of Chilean author Isabel Allende. It's very short so I'm looking to finish it by tonight.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Mar 21, 2021 23:12:13 GMT
annnd four hours later we're done with that book. It's quite lovely. Part memoir, part feminist manifesto, part meditation on aging. Haven't read any of Allende's novels but I've heard of some of them, and now I want to check them out. This was my very first 2021 release next up, Jenna Bush Hager's Everything Beautiful in Its Time. People were raving this last fall. It's short so might as well see what the fuss was about. I also want to read this one fast.
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Post by stabcaesar on Mar 23, 2021 6:41:22 GMT
Haven't read in a while. Just began reading A Little Life. Hope I won't cry too much in the end.
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