What are you reading right now?

[Lisnaholic]

@ Janszoon, Guybrush and interloper: all books and authors I've never heard of, except of course Breakfast at Tiffany's. I also saw the movie, but watching it with friends after a night in the pub means that I don't remember anything about it, apart from Audrey Hepburn's looks. I would, on the other hand, totally recommend Capote's In Cold Blood, which is an extensive factual examination of a murder.

Of the books you three have mentioned, I think J's The House Of Broken Angels sounds most appealing. Sorry, interloper, but that well-chosen phrase, "chipping away" = total red flag for me

[Marie Monday]

I read Angela Carter's Black Venus and liked it quite a lot. I don't always like the writing - sometimes it veers off into silly pretentious nonsense à la Bob Dylan, but usually it's nice and I like how coherent the stories are as a whole, all focusing on female (primal) power and sexuality, and I think she captures the male perception of that very well: a mix of awe, fetishization, discomfort, and fear that Simone de Beauvoir would have loved

[DJChameleon]

Currently reading Scott Pilgrim. I saw the movie but never read the graphic novel that it was based off on. I'm halfway through Volume 1. Maybe I forgot if they did it in the movie also but didn't realize it had a fourth wall breaking aspect to it.

[Guybrush]

It digs a decent amount into her background and that's definitely the saddest stuff. She's also not particularly likeable in the book, I'm not sure how much of that was intentional and how much of that is the book showing its age. One thing that was interesting was the character of Yunioshi. Though I've never seen the movie, I've seen clips of the racist caricature that he was on screen. It's such a weird decision because in the book he's an American guy of Japanese descent, so the accent and clothing wouldn't have made sense even if they were done in a less racist way.

That part of the movie obviously hasn't aged well, but is pretty funny in an outrageous bad taste kind of way. Like even for its time, why would they do this?

It's a while since I saw it now, but I think the worst thing one might say about Holly is she left her kids behind for what.. to be a wannabe socialite trying to live out a fantasy in an apartment somewhere? The goal doesn't seem to quite justify the means based on the information you get in the movie. 🤔

But then of course it's Audrey Hepburn and she sings Moon River while playing a guitar and you can't help but get a little smitten.

[innerspaceboy]

I decided to celebrate my new career with a literary treasure. Having already amassed a complete bibliography of one of my most-beloved science fiction writers, I thought I'd take my collection to the next level with a hardcover of my favorite oversized omnibus of Ray Bradbury's short stories signed by the late, great author, himself.

The Stories of Ray Bradbury is an anthology containing 100 of his tales, first published by Knopf in 1980. The hundred stories, written from 1943 to 1980, were selected by the author. And my copy is signed. Bradbury passed away in 2012 at the age of 91.

Thank you for inspiring a magical perspective of this beautiful world, Ray. <3

[Guybrush]

I read Terrortome and this is the direct sequel/ continuation, so of course I had to buy it.

If you're not familiar with Garth Marenghi, maybe you should watch this.

Basically a parody of Stephen King and possibly Clive Barker, Garth is a narcissistic, fictional horror writer who heavy-handedly uses every horror cliché and who, in Terrortome, uses himself as the protagonist through his paper thin alter ego Nick Steen.

Nick Steen is also a successful horror writer with a skin condition, but he has the additional problem of his fiction coming to life due to his sexual relationship with a demonic typewriter and the events that unfold from that.

It's a bit difficult to explain, but rather a fun read.

[Meatwad]

Chuck Palahniuk - Consider This
World Class Tennis Technique - Paul Roetert
More cooking books than is probably necessary, as I'm still re-jigging my diet to help lose ~5kg. 

[Hope]

I'm taking these on holiday with me in a few days.





I've begun a whole Anthony Bourdain project. I obtained all three of his tv shows and have a whole list of books to buy. I also watched "Roadrunner", a documentary about him. 

[Lisnaholic]

^ I wonder what it is about this guy that intrigues you, Hope ?

I also love reading (auto)biogs, memoirs, etc. but for a holiday, I don't think I've ever committed myself to just the one subject. I prefer to build in a bit of variety in case my mood/interest changes direction.                                         

[Hope]

^ I wonder what it is about this guy that intrigues you, Hope ?

                                     

I caught his television shows here and there over the years but unfortunately I didn't realize just how fascinating he was until after he was gone. I just want to know more about the life he took.

[Lisnaholic]

^ Well, I hope it's an enjoyable exploration.
 
"Down and Out...""...the culinary underbelly...": at least it sounds like it'll be more than some glitzy celeb story. Perhaps I should dip into these books too: when I was a student, I had several jobs as a dishwasher in restaurants. You are the lowest person in the kitchen hierachy, and have to keep working on when the chef has already downed his tools and gone home. What was nice, though, is that, at the end of the night, the waitresses would share out some of their tip-money to you:  a nice gesture of worker solidarity.   

[Drjohnrock]

Webb WIlder, Last Of The Full Grown Men:  "Mole Men" & "The Doll", by Steve Boyle and Shane Caldwell

Musician John Webb McMurray acted in the title role in a 1984 short called Webb Wilder, Private Eye In 'The Saucer's Reign' McMurray ended up taking the WW name for his music career, and Boyle and Caldwell wrote this book based on the character (with some input from Webb himself).  The book is in the format of the old Ace doubles, where you read the first story, then turn the book over and upside down to read the second one.  I've finished The Mole Men and am now reading The Doll.  There's a lot of humor, just like in Kinky Friedman's detective novels, but the writing is less focused on the character's personal life, and better for it.  My only complaint is that the stories are a bit too short.  I bought my copy at the merch table from Wilder himself after his 70th birthday concert last weekend.  The show was great, but that's a subject for another thread.

[Guybrush]

I've been buying old comics I've already read on Google Play because they've had a great sale AND reading comics on our tablet actually is superb.

Reading old ass Hellblazer comics, also bought Watchmen for 4 USD and then Hellboy in hell. I read everything else of Hellboy, I believe. Through a podcast, I became aware that not only had Mignola written more, but also concluded Hellboy's story, I believe.

I'm also reading books without pictures. I finished the Garth Marenghi book which ended considerably weaker than it started (still fun, though) and now I've started this:



A colleague has talked at me about the greatness of this series at least twice now, so hey.. why not. I enjoy fantasy 👌

I'm only ten pages in or so.

[innerspaceboy]

I couldn't be more excited about this book! This is exclusively how I'll be spending my 4-day weekend!

Ray Kurzweil - The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge With AI (2024)

I pre-ordered early enough to get a bonus autographed bookplate, laptop sticker, and a high-resolution poster featuring Kurzweil's Law. I'm so thrilled to have a signed edition!

About Ray Kurzweil:

Kurzweil has been a leading developer in artificial intelligence for 61 years – longer than any other living person. He was the principal inventor of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, omni-font optical character recognition, print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, text-to-speech synthesizer, music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software. Ray received a Grammy Award for outstanding achievement in music technology; he is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He has written five best-selling books including The Singularity Is Near and How To Create A Mind, both New York Times bestsellers, and Danielle: Chronicles of a Superheroine, winner of multiple young adult fiction awards. He is a Principal Researcher and AI Visionary at Google.

Reviews:

"RAY KURZWEIL'S THE SINGULARITY IS NEARER IS TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY WHAT CHARLES DARWIN'S ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES WAS TO LIFE SCIENCE."
Martine Rothblatt, PhD, Creator of SiriusXM, United Therapeutics, electric helicopters and the Bina48 robot

"THIS BOOK WILL CHALLENGE EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT TECHNOLOGY, LIFE, AND DEATH. IT WILL LIGHT YOU UP WITH ANSWERS TO TODAY'S MOST PRESSING QUESTIONS ABOUT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY."
Tony Robbins,
Global Entrepreneur, Investor, New York Times #1 Bestselling Author, Philanthropist, and the World's #1 Life and Business Strategist

"May be the single most important contribution to understanding the valuable roles of AI and nanotechnology."
Natasha Vita-More,
PhD, Author, Co-creator of the Transhumanist Movement

https://www.thesingularityisnearer.com/

[Guybrush]

Nice one, @innerspaceboy 🙂 I'll add it to my to-read list.

I'm still on book 1 of Stormlight Archive and reading the comic Batman: Year One with my daughter.