What are you reading right now?

[Toy Revolver]

we both probably shortchanged outselves not reading The Colony by Sally Denton instead but i doubt i'll be reading much more on mormon extremists any time soon

i might get into a podcast on it - i like that podcast just called Cults

https://www.parcast.com/cults it's real matter of fact - doesn't try to be funny or cute or over sensational - episode after after episode is shocking though

it's a very scripted podcast they do Serial Killers too

i know last podcast on the left is very popular and to each their own but they just seem like trendy frat kids to me - i don't find them funny clever or likable

they also remind me of improv comedy people and that's not a compliment

[Nimbly9]

One of the best sci-fi experiences I've had in a long time. Doesn't go the way you think it will and the premise is surprisingly engaging in regards to how an alien species who has modified the human race in ancient times might engage with us again in a first contact-like scenario.

[Toy Revolver]

One of the best sci-fi experiences I've had in a long time. Doesn't go the way you think it will and the premise is surprisingly engaging in regards to how an alien species who has modified the human race in ancient times might engage with us again in a first contact-like scenario.

looks interesting

just finished:


Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

the best full sweeping history i've ever read

answers not just what but why and how

books that compliment this book imo are

How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going by Vaclav Smil

A (Very) Short History of Life On Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters by Henry Gee

The Social Conquest of Earth by E. O. Wilson

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan

[Toy Revolver]

just finished

Kobo Abe
The Face of Another

brilliant

i'm going to quote reviews - it's a very difficult book to describe but it deals with mental illness and sexual deviance and war and even though the plot is easy enough to follow the layers upon layers of meaning seem impossibly deep

Review
"A fascinating book.... The world of Kobo Abe is one in which intellectual concepts have the emotional impact and motivating power of psychotic compulsions."–Newsweek

"A major novel... Since The Woman in the Dunes, Kobo Abe's stock as a novelist has been very high. The Face of Another raises it still more."–The Christian Science Monitor

"Probes the edges of a waking nightmare....The central, shaping metaphor of face and facelessness is brilliant, and Abe's relentless pursuit of its every implication is powerful."–The Saturday Review
From the Inside Flap
Like an elegantly chilling postscript to The Metamorphosis, this classic of postwar Japanese literature describes a bizarre physical transformation that exposes the duplicities of an entire world. The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident?a man who has lost his face and, with it, his connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him.

His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self?a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity and the social contract,The Face of Another is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.
From the Back Cover
Like an elegantly chilling postscript to The Metamorphosis," this classic of postwar Japanese literature describes a bizarre physical transformation that exposes the duplicities of an entire world. The narrator is a scientist hideously deformed in a laboratory accident-a man who has lost his face and, with it, his connection to other people. Even his wife is now repulsed by him.
His only entry back into the world is to create a mask so perfect as to be undetectable. But soon he finds that such a mask is more than a disguise: it is an alternate self-a self that is capable of anything. A remorseless meditation on nature, identity and the social contract," The Face of Another is an intellectual horror story of the highest order.
About the Author
Kobo Abe was born in Tokyo in 1924, grew up in Manchuria, and returned to Japan in his early twenties. In 1948 he received a medical degree from Tokyo Imperial University, but he never practiced medicine. Before his death in 1993, Abe was considered his country's foremost living novelist, and was also widely known as a dramatist. His novels have earned many literary awards and prizes, and have all been best sellers in Japan. They include The Woman in the Dunes, Kangaroo Notebook, The Ark Sakura, The Face of Another, The Box Man, and The Ruined Map.

this is the third book of his ive read

[Jwb]

i assume you know O'Reilly is famous for being a former fox news right winger

anti-poor
anti-choice
homophobic
extremely hawkish foreign policy

that doesn't mean it's not a good book but do his political and hateful cultural perspectives shade his historical narrative or did it seem fair?

seems like an interesting read either way

apparently Hannity is a Lincoln dickrider too. More proof that John Wilkes Booth was doing the lord's work.

I wonder if O'Reilly had a chapter in the book where he labels Lincoln a patriot and John Wilkes Booth a pinhead?

[Guybrush]

I wonder if O'Reilly had a chapter in the book where he labels Lincoln a patriot and John Wilkes Booth a pinhead?

Like a cenobite? Angels to some, demons to others?

[Janszoon]

I wonder if O'Reilly had a chapter in the book where he labels Lincoln a patriot and John Wilkes Booth a pinhead?

Like a cenobite? Angels to some, demons to others?

We have such sights to show you.

[Jwb]

Jesus christ. I didn't know he made an actual book out of the Pinheads vs Patriots bit when I posted that. I was just looking for an example of the segment and stumbled on this:

[Toy Revolver]

i finished children of ruin last night which is the second of three so far in this series by adrian tchaikovsky

i loved this and number one - children of time

this guy ted chiang kim stanley robinson and liu cixin are great new school sci-fi


the one i just finished was mesmerizing, mind bending, and to me very disturbing (it tapped into some of my deepest fears about what life really is)

these two books also offer some of the best speculation about animal intelligence i've ever read - whether science, philosophy, or fiction

i absolutely have to rave - this series is really something special

[Janszoon]

Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman
I just started this novel yesterday. So far it's as well written and funny as I expected based on having read some of his non-fiction.

[Toy Revolver]

i just finished a book called header by edward lee

spoiler for sexual violence and vulgarity

Spoiler

the book is mostly about a type of necrophilic fetish where a hole is cut in an unlucky female corpse's skull and the brain is used as masturbatory tool - the author was impressively economical and moved the simple but entertaining plot along and a good clip

all horror moves along a spectrum of how far the author decides to take it but i felt sonewhat cheated that the women where given easy deaths - if you're going to go with such a grotesque premise why not make the victims suffer through it while alive

another oddity was that they often referred to the victims as "crackers" but no other indication was given as to the ethnicity of the deviants

the book was written in 95 and was published by a company owned by glenn danzig

i suspect that there were limits to where the author was willing to go in accordance with punk rock moralism

[close]

[Janszoon]

i just finished a book called header by edward lee

spoiler for sexual violence and vulgarity

Spoiler

the book is mostly about a type of necrophilic fetish where a hole is cut in an unlucky female corpse's skull and the brain is used as masturbatory tool - the author was impressively economical and moved the simple but entertaining plot along and a good clip

all horror moves along a spectrum of how far the author decides to take it but i felt sonewhat cheated that the women where given easy deaths - if you're going to go with such a grotesque premise why not make the victims suffer through it while alive

another oddity was that they often referred to the victims as "crackers" but no other indication was given as to the ethnicity of the deviants

the book was written in 95 and was published by a company owned by glenn danzig

i suspect that there were limits to where the author was willing to go in accordance with punk rock moralism

[close]

Maybe they were called crackers because of the rigor mortis. 

[jadis]

Nothing special. Expected more from the writer all the cool girls are reading.    

[Toy Revolver]

Nothing special. Expected more from the writer all the cool girls are reading.   

i thought it was a fantastic examination into depression and the alure of dropping out of life using chemicals - the complete disengagement with the world

i also found the protagonist beautifully relatable

i think it's good companion read to The Master bt Colm Tóibín and i actually think Moshfegh's novel compares favorably

so, i disagree with you 😊

[Jwb]

I would have jerked off to that cover pic when i was like 12.