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Post by stephen on Oct 2, 2022 0:13:01 GMT
my Spooktober reading list: My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix Red by Jack Ketchum Cujo by the King Himself The Deep by Nick Cutter Been meaning to try Hendrix out for a while. I hear really good things. Ketchum was such a great writer. Ladies' Night is probably my favourite one of his. Cujo is the epitome of early '80s King. Lean, mean, and coked out of his fucking mind. I do kinda hate the Steve Kemp storyline, though.
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Post by Brother Fease on Oct 3, 2022 1:51:51 GMT
Finished up Run Away by Harlan Coben and Out of Range by CJ Box, now onto The Cuckoo Calling by JK Rowling.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Oct 3, 2022 2:07:07 GMT
Finished up Run Away by Harlan Coben and Out of Range by CJ Box, now onto The Cuckoo Calling by JK Rowling. I enjoyed The Cuckoo's Calling mostly for the dynamic between the two leads, but it's probably the book I like the least in the series. The second one, The Silkworm, is actually my favorite.
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Post by Brother Fease on Oct 3, 2022 20:11:05 GMT
Finished up Run Away by Harlan Coben and Out of Range by CJ Box, now onto The Cuckoo Calling by JK Rowling. I enjoyed The Cuckoo's Calling mostly for the dynamic between the two leads, but it's probably the book I like the least in the series. The second one, The Silkworm, is actually my favorite. Interesting. I got Silkworm for my birthday and decided to read TCC first. I enjoy reading this thread because I get book suggestions. I have been on a reading streak for the past year. Coben and Box have been my favs so far. Trying out Rowling now.
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Post by pacinoyes on Oct 5, 2022 18:08:17 GMT
Haruki Murakami "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"Prefer short stories to novels these days - especially in his case....great-ish stuff
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Post by Brother Fease on Oct 9, 2022 20:40:05 GMT
Playing for Pizza by John Grisham. Going to get into the football mode.
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Post by sterlingarcher86 on Oct 10, 2022 21:29:33 GMT
my Spooktober reading list: My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix Red by Jack Ketchum Cujo by the King Himself The Deep by Nick Cutter Been meaning to try Hendrix out for a while. I hear really good things. Ketchum was such a great writer. Ladies' Night is probably my favourite one of his. Cujo is the epitome of early '80s King. Lean, mean, and coked out of his fucking mind. I do kinda hate the Steve Kemp storyline, though. Agree with Kemp but Cujo was way better than I expected it to be.
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Post by stephen on Oct 10, 2022 21:34:35 GMT
Been meaning to try Hendrix out for a while. I hear really good things. Ketchum was such a great writer. Ladies' Night is probably my favourite one of his. Cujo is the epitome of early '80s King. Lean, mean, and coked out of his fucking mind. I do kinda hate the Steve Kemp storyline, though. Agree with Kemp but Cujo was way better than I expected it to be. The way that King writes from the dog's perspective is top-notch. He does it a bit in The Stand as well, but Cujo is so fascinating because he perfectly describes Cujo's mental degeneration in a way that is both horrifying and heartbreaking. He really tried to be a good dog.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Oct 16, 2022 3:53:00 GMT
several hours into Cujo and there are way too many human characters in this book about a big scary dog. I sort of expected that when I saw the length but it's still surprising. I mean the book is named after the dog but 80% so far has been melodrama about infidelity, domestic abuse and a deep dive on ad campaigns. I'm ready for Cujo to start tearing shit up.
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Post by Brother Fease on Oct 17, 2022 10:32:27 GMT
The Goodbye Man by Jeffery Deaver. Book #2 in the Colter Shaw series.
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Post by MsMovieStar on Oct 18, 2022 17:20:34 GMT
Oh honey, Tony Bourdain seemed to me one of those vital people who was torn between a tremendous zest for life and the urge to self-destruct... But I think this book shows that evidence of the latter was there since the early days.
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Post by Brother Fease on Oct 19, 2022 16:13:19 GMT
Silkworm by JK Rowling. Starting this tomorrow.
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Oct 19, 2022 16:40:27 GMT
I've been reading Devil House by John Darnielle and i'm about halfway done with it. It's not bad but it isn't at all what I thought it was going to be. Advertising this as Horror is a complete sham - if anything its a sad book about what drives true crime authors into writing true crime stories. But with this blurb and cover below I was expecting something completely different. Rather disappointing, but I'm pushing myself to finish it. The blurb: "Gage Chandler is descended from kings. That’s what his mother always told him. Years later, he is a true crime writer, with one grisly success—and a movie adaptation—to his name, along with a series of subsequent less notable efforts. But now he is being offered the chance for the big break: to move into the house where a pair of briefly notorious murders occurred, apparently the work of disaffected teens during the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Chandler finds himself in Milpitas, California, a small town whose name rings a bell—his closest childhood friend lived there, once upon a time. He begins his research with diligence and enthusiasm, but soon the story leads him into a puzzle he never expected—back into his own work and what it means, back to the very core of what he does and who he is."
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Oct 23, 2022 20:49:17 GMT
Cujo is a short story blown up to 320 pages. It's boring as hell. Didn't like the movie either so I don't know what I was expecting. last Spooktober reading will be another dog-centric book Red by Jack Ketchum. Not gonna get to the Nick Cutter this year but it's not going anywhere.
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Post by Martin Stett on Nov 1, 2022 3:37:28 GMT
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Dawn (Volume 1) by Yoshiki Tanaka (translated by Daniel Huddleston) So, full disclosure: The anime based on this series of books is, in my opinion, a masterpiece and the epic that all other epics should strive to be. It is 40+ hours of war and politics and terrorism and economics and even if it isn't 100% perfect in all respects (its portrayals of terrorism and religious fanaticism in particular), it is a magnificent series for grown-ups to soak into. This book... is not that. I'm halfway through, and... hoo boy. This book is so shallow compared to the show. The most obvious reason: The show is longer. It takes more time, develops its characters in more scenes, develops its action setpieces as long form battles taking place over multiple episodes, and is on the whole, far, FAR slower, more deliberate, more fleshed out. But there are other problems with Tanaka's writing here. His flat "this happened and then this happened" writing has no poetry, no interior dialogue that isn't flatly expositional. He puts Jessica Edwards on a bus after a dozen lines, introducing her at the funeral and immediately getting rid of her after she's made her speech. There is no sense of Jessica being a person that exists outside of her function in the narrative. The same can be said of everyone else so far. And that is very frustrating, as someone who watched the superior adaptation. I had heard that the show was better from... well, every source I could find. But YIKES, I didn't think the first book would be this bad. Would it bother me as much if I hadn't seen the show? Hell no. Would I like it if I hadn't seen the show? No, I don't really think so. To be fair, the show takes its time to get moving too, but the equivalent moments (damn, does the funeral leave a bad taste in the source material) are FAR more professionally handled in the anime.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 1, 2022 17:46:11 GMT
Red was surprisingly beautiful. Barely horror, barely even a thriller actually. Based on the premise, I kept expecting Ludlow to just go off on these little shits but the escalating tension never approaches that level of mayhem and caps off with a bittersweet ending. The guy just loved his dog. Gary Kohler narrated the version I listened to and I gotta say, he was fucking amazing. He gives Ludlow such a calm and firm tone. Matter of fact with a hint of mournfulness. Very John Vernon in Outlaw Josey Wales and practically the same baritone pitch. Soulful and wonderful voice and it really helped me fall in love with Ludlow.
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Post by Mattsby on Nov 2, 2022 3:33:17 GMT
finished Moby Dick (1851) recently -- "Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys."
Nobody ever told me Melville's epic of blubber-hunting was hilarious. Also....mainly, a very foully funny coming-of-ager. Very much loved all that was thru Ishmael, but he's parenthesized for much of the second half.... returning only for a cap, and a GOAT ending line.
also finished "a Gothic" The Sundial (1958) which wasn't spooky but.....hilarious, and not entirely unexpected for those that know Shirley Jackson. It was a bit like praline Chekhov? La règle du Jackson? A comedy of manors? Or something Carrière might've wittily writ for the movies. Much powdered parody - picture a gaggle of Edith Evans, superstitiously swooning over their juleps, heaving fresh air they presume could fell them, feigning the very worst (the apocalypse) and behaving with farcical indifference.
currently, and released-today already, a few reels into QT's Cinema Speculation (2022) - super enjoyable, quite like a childhood memoir told thru his moviegoing experiences.
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Post by stabcaesar on Nov 9, 2022 13:37:22 GMT
I'm about 15% in and so far the only thought I have is jesus christ are these fuckers pretentious. Finished it. It was stunning.
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Post by Brother Fease on Nov 9, 2022 23:11:56 GMT
3rd book in the Colter Shaw series.
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Post by DeepArcher on Nov 10, 2022 3:58:18 GMT
Finished this the other day ... newest collection of stories from America's greatest living short story writer (to my knowledge), if not writer in general (personal preference). The title story - also the first story and by far the longest - felt awfully familiar to much of Saunders' body of work at first, but as it goes along and finds its groove, and the main event(s) of the plot begins to unfold, I was completely sucked back into Saunders' deadpan, absurdist world and humor, and absolutely had a blast with it. The highlights for me in this collection - The Mom of Bold Action, A Thing at Work, Mother's Day - all have that ineffable quality that defines Saunders' best work, that darkly comic stream-of-consciousness that manages to render its characters as deeply sympathetic and entirely plausible, and often in surprising ways. The weaker entries for me - Ghoul, Elliot Spencer - felt maybe a bit too reminiscent of some of his prior stuff, but with a lot to like in them that makes me think they'll improve on a second go. In the middle of the pack are some of his shorter pieces - Love Letter, Sparrow, My House - maybe don't resonate quite as deeply as the best of the best, but still tell a whole lot with a little, even if the "point" is a bit more obvious in each of those... Another great, great collection - it's maybe no Tenth of December, but what is? Now, onto the new McCarthy...
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Nov 16, 2022 20:30:44 GMT
this one was pretty controversial when it dropped last June so I wanna see what the fuss is about. 30 minutes in: well it seems to be set in a fanatically religious medieval village where everyone's masochistic and miserable and smells like animal shit, and there's a marauder who gets publicly tortured and disembroiled. Some wooden dialogue aside, Moshfegh has my attention.
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Post by Brother Fease on Dec 7, 2022 3:44:11 GMT
The Brave by Nicholas Evans 2010
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SZilla
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Post by SZilla on Dec 7, 2022 4:13:43 GMT
Finished One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey in November and it easiy became one of my all-time favorite reads. Currently reading Brighton Rock by Graham Greene after seeing the film a while back and loving it.
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Post by Brother Fease on Dec 18, 2022 17:22:26 GMT
In Plain Sight by CJ Box. #6 in the Joe Pickett series.
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Post by MsMovieStar on Dec 19, 2022 22:49:20 GMT
Oh honeys, OK she embellished... she fabricated... she downright lied! but she was still pretty extraordinary person who had a lot of cojones. I'll probably re-read the other two volumes next, but this one is my favorite.
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