ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Will be interested in your opinions after you get into it Ben.
i just finished Thirteen, interesting, maybe better than the Takeshi Kovacs books.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
Finished it over the weekend actually Jeff. I obviously won't ruin it for anyone but I did find it pretty disturbing really. I think as a novel it is brilliantly written and sort of meanders around for quite a while before the more shocking revelations are revealed in the final third of the book. Overall I did enjoy it and I think some of the literary criticism of the novel has been harsh. After all, it was a first effort which was written over 60 years ago and it very questionable whether Harper Lee wanted to publish it at all.
I would consider it as a really interesting companion piece to Mockingbird. It just isn't as good a story and not as well written but still absolutely worth a read especially if like me you have missed the characters from the original story!
I'm now reading 'Room' by Emma Donoghue, meant to be very good, will update my thoughts when I have finished!
Ben
I meant to say I did not think it was brilliantly written!
Thanks Ben! Seems to mirror some of what I've been hearing, will probably wait a while as I have a lot of other books in the pipe, trying to finish Livy's History of Rome.
Just finished William Gibson's The Peripheral. Pretty typical of Gibson's later works, in that his usual visionary cyberpunk ideas grab current things and extrapolate them forward in maturity and time, both technological progress and governmental and societal collapse, which is the good part, he's remarkably creative and a good writer. The bad part is that, as opposed to the beginning of his career, he's developed a tendency to end books too abruptly and on far too happy an ending, everything working out just peachy keen really puts the hurting on a good dystopian tale.
Just finished "Market Forces" by Richard Morgan, who wrote the Takeshita Kovacs novels. I think it's his best work yet, still wildly creative and imaginative, but set in the near future, no real scifi tech but instead he turns his imagination to a wildly different market and societal structure. Very good, he manages to savage both cut throat capitalism and socialism/liberal/UN approaches at the same time.
Jeff:Just finished "Market Forces" by Richard Morgan, who wrote the Takeshita Kovacs novels. I think it's his best work yet, still wildly creative and imaginative, but set in the near future, no real scifi tech but instead he turns his imagination to a wildly different market and societal structure. Very good, he manages to savage both cut throat capitalism and socialism/liberal/UN approaches at the same time. Jeff Beovirus victim, it's gotten to be too much to list!
BeoNut since '75
One of the things I liked most about "Market Forces" is, unlike his other books, he didn't feel the need to put in pornographic sex scenes involving the protagonist. Not that I have anything against pornographic sex scenes, heaven forbid! It's just that the author is not very good at writing them IMO, and they tend to derail the flow of the story. I kept waiting for them to get done shagging and back to the plot. Also, his protagonist spent less time in navel gazing, sometimes Kovacs got excessively involved in that. Still I enjoyed all of his books immensely, regardless of the odd niggle about this or that.
Jeff: I kept waiting for them to get done shagging and back to the plot.
I kept waiting for them to get done shagging and back to the plot.
That's almost a word for word quote from an acquaintance of mine referring to the young couple in the apartment on the floor above.
Graham
Isn't there a Paul Simon song, one man's ceiling is another man's floor?
Been a while since there's been any activity in this thread. I'll try and revive it with this.
Am currently reading Terry Gilliam's autobiography: "Gilliamesque: A Pre-posthumous Memoir"
I'm just in the beginning, and so far it's very interesting, he has a great writing style and learning about his early influences and such is fascinating. I've always been an admirer of his movies, they have a kind of Byzantine level of detail, complex but every part seems to fit. Also, his more visually stunning movies have an almost fractal recursiveness, in that the deeper you look into any scene the more detail there is.
I also just finished two books by the late Florence King, who recently died at I believe 82 years old. She had written a column for the National Review for years called "The Misanthropes Corner" if I recall. I just reread "Southern Ladies And Gentlemen" and "Confessions Of A Failed Southern Lady." Both of which are very funny, and give a unique look at the insanity that all Southerners take for granted. She's too much influenced, IMO, in her writings by the fact that she grew up in an older, more prejudiced South during the Civil Rights era, and her views are colored by her feminism and bisexuality/lesbianism, but she's funny nonetheless. Plus, the South, sadly, in many ways is losing a lot of it's traditional culture and mannerisms as it gets more homogenized with the rest of the country. She's about 20 years or so older than I am, and grew up in a different South than I did in many ways, but I do recognize the things she describes, especially from my childhood and my grandparents. A hysterically funny writer though.
Also reading the novel "Look Who's Back" that the excellent movie is based on, about Hitler waking up in modern Berlin. So far while the book is interesting, it's not as funny as the movie, which incorporated a lot of sight gags and other humor that is only tangentially recognizable in the book. The book reads more like a 2nd Mein Kampf.
Jeff:Am currently reading Terry Gilliam's autobiography: "Gilliamesque: A Pre-posthumous Memoir"
Terry Gilliam was at an award ceremony on the news last week...... receiving an award and supported by his son as he has alzheimer's.
I've just got around to reading Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. An interesting mix of science fiction time travel and the true experience of someone who survived the WW2 fire bombing of Dresden.
Winnie the Pooh : The Best Bear in all the World.
4 new stories written in honour of the 90th anniversary of Pooh. Obviously a little derivative but nicely done!
Peter
I am into Die Nächte der langen Messer, Hans Hellmut Kirst, I just love Kirts´s sarcastic and ironic way of writing, his humor is not for everyone, but definitely for Danes. Suggest you start out with the 08:15 series, where Koporal Asch will show you how to get around the German army's corporal discipline during WW II .
Collecting Vintage B&O is not a hobby, its a lifestyle.
OK, kind of a post crossing between books and lifestyle, I've ordered this cookbook:
Feeding Hannibal
By the food stylist for the TV show "Hannibal." I'm really looking forward to it, she taught the actor Mads Mikkelsen how to cook, his technique for the cooking scenes in the show is very advanced. The types of meals are very, very ornate, not the modern high art minimalist kind of cooking and presentation you see today at high end restaurants. The cooking in the show is very Baroque in style, looks like still life's of dinners and banquets from Renaissance paintings. Very ornate and fussy.
This kind of bridges what I'm reading and watching, I just ordered a new cookbook that'll be here tomorrow:
It's a cookbook by the food stylist for the TV show "Hannibal." She taught the actor, Mads Mikkelsen, how to cook, in the show Hannibal displays some very high end cooking skills, knife skills, how he uses pans and such. Of course, the ingredients are less exotic. The food in the show is very complex and ornate, but in a much more traditional Baroque style, the food looks like something out of a Renaissance painting of a banquet for royalty, not the much more minimalist modern presentations. I'm looking forward to it.
Just finished what will be the first of all of Ted Chiang's works: The Story of Your Life, which was the short story the movie Arrival was based on. So good!
Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen.
Translated in French, odd reading...
I recently finished two series, first I've been watching "The Expanse" on SyFy channel, it's a very well done space opera set 200 years into the future, there are currently 6 books, three more to come, and I've finished all of the current 6. Very well written, and a logical and scientifically pretty valid set of technology for 200 years hence. The books differ from the show, but less in where they are going than in how they get there exactly. It's kind of odd to see scenes that are right out of the book, down to exact dialog, but showing up in different sequences. Odd you can get to the same place by doing things completely differently. Good show and books.
Also just finished Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" which is a collection of fantasy stories he wrote over the years, all set on an earth so far in the future the sun is dying. My favorite author, Gene Wolfe, is supposed to have been a great admirer of the Dying Earth stuff, and it shows, it did influence his writing in the "Book Of The New Sun" even though there's not much overlap in what they are about other than occurring at the end of the world when the sun is dying. But you can see the influences.
The cookbook arrived, would have enjoyed more photography, but it's a combo of photos and drawings. Very interesting and entertaining though, some tales from filming were quite interesting. One scene Mads Mikkelsen was dining with Lawrence Fishburne, and the dinner item was a very artistic presentation of foie gras. First Mikkelsen flubbed a line, so they had to bring out more foie gras. Then Fishburne made a mistake, and over and over for a few more takes, they kept wanting to eat more of her foie gras so they kept making it so they had to do more takes. Some of the photos may not be for the faint hearted, a ham and such arranged so it looks like a handless human arm. But a fun book.
Caesar's "Gallic wars"
Far more interesting than Zarathustra... (reading aborted)
CB: Caesar's "Gallic wars" Far more interesting than Zarathustra...
Far more interesting than Zarathustra...
I have that on my Kindle, need to get back to reading it. A true military and historical classic. Remember what Suetonius said about Caesar, he was called "Every woman's man, and every man's woman."
What is surprising with this book is :
CB: What is surprising with this book is : The English title is about wars (plural) and Gallic (singular), the French title (La guerre des Gaules) is about war (singular) and Gaules (plural), like with Star Wars / La guerre des étoiles It sounds like extant stories (politic, affairs...)
You make a good point re politics...things don't really change, except that today in most countries the leader doesn't get knifed to death in the Senate. But the Romans were legendary for making politics a true blood sport, I guess without the distractions of iPhones and PCs and Twitter and Facebook and such, there wasn't as much to do so they did politics and backstabbing as a replacement.
Bought a book before one of many long flights,long time ago.Finally managed to read : Bob Dylan "Chronicles" . Interesting...
Beogram 6500 MMC2,Beosound Ouverture,2xBeolab 8000,2xBelolab 4000,Beolab 2,Beolab 7.2,Beo4 navi, 2xBeocom2,Serene,Beosystem 3 mk3,H6 2nd gen,Earphones E8,A8,A9 keyring,Beoplay A1,Bottle opener,Beoplay A2 active(thanks Botty)Wine Set(thanks Botty),4Ktv Samsung 55'',Beolab 7.1 with 42''Panasonic plasma,,Oppo udp-203, LinTronic.
I'm a bit over halfway through "Red Dragon" and am finding it just mediocre. Not particularly well written, in fact the writers of "Hannibal" are far better writers, even though they based their work on the books. I'm having to force myself to finish it, which leaves me in doubt I'll read the other books.
After watching "Arrival" I read some reviews, followed the odd link in a review and found this:
By John Colapinto
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/the-interpreter-2
Let's do some name dropping - Sapir, Chomsky, Everett - and you have opened a can of worms in your mind to add a few more questions on language and understanding, culture creating language or language creating culture?
If you enjoy the Einstein book, I'd strongly recommend the two autobiographies of Richard Feynman:
Surely You Must Be Joking Mr. Feynman
and
What Do You Care What Other People Think
IMO, Feynman was the equal of Einstein as a physicist (though he wouldn't say so about himself) and contributed greatly to the field of quantum electro dynamics. His autobiographies are amazing insights into a brilliant and unconventional mind.
Jeff:If you enjoy the Einstein book, I'd strongly recommend the two autobiographies of Richard Feynman: Surely You Must Be Joking Mr. Feynman and What Do You Care What Other People Think IMO, Feynman was the equal of Einstein as a physicist (though he wouldn't say so about himself) and contributed greatly to the field of quantum electro dynamics. His autobiographies are amazing insights into a brilliant and unconventional mind. Jeff Beovirus victim, it's gotten to be too much to list!
"The Universe in Zero Words" by Dana Mackenzie ("Fous d'équations" in French)
"The Universe in Zero Words tells the history of twenty-four great and beautiful equations that have shaped mathematics, science, and society..."
http://danamackenzie.com/about/the-story-of-the-universe-in-zero-words/
Just starting reading it, sounds quite interesting !
Not a book, but reading anyway.
One of the main reasons, why I have kept on hanging out on the Computer Audiophile website,
was the stories of Gilbert Klein presented there from time to time.
Gilbert Klein was an insider of the music business, the old music business.
I write ‘was’, because Gilbert just passed away a couple of days ago.
His stories were excellent, amusing and interesting - giving you a peak into the lives of many a ‘famous star’, bigger or smaller.
if you are interested in stories about musicians and alike from the 50/60/70’ies, I highly urge you to read his stuff.
You can find if (some of it) here:
https://www.computeraudiophile.com/ca/88_the-music-in-me/
I am going to miss him/his stories.
MM
There is a tv - and there is a BV
elephant:Also reading Swift 4.1 ... and listening to lots of Swift Unwrapped podcasts when I am out exercising ... and working my way through various programming tutorial
CB:Hi Ed Are you going into drones programming?
Just finished Still Alice: a bit depressing but full of hope too. Can’t wait to watch the film, because I’m sure that Juliane Moore will be superb as always—although she doesn’t quite fit the book’s character!
Jacques
"Still Alice" sounds very emotional but not going to be reading or watching it. We're living it sadly with my mother-in-law. I've watched a brilliant lady turn into what's basically a potted plant over the last 4 years, and it's been especially hard on her children.
For reading, I've just finished rereading, after a couple of decades, Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man" and "The Martian Chronicles." I was compelled to do this after stumbling across a TV series "Ray Bradbury Theater" on Amazon Video. Bradbury himself gives the introduction at the start of each episode (not specific to the episode just a general intro sadly). That reminded me of his work and the fact I always enjoyed his writing and I find I appreciated it even more now, some 3 plus decades later.