Kind of beyond The Pale King: newest book thread

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

****i am a dick 8===D

wait what happened

[elpollodiablo]

I was merely making light of yer new typin voice

[milly balgeary]

haha.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

okay  yeah buddy

[davy]

Picked this up today after reading that it won an Alex Award this year. The Alex Award is given annually to 10 "adult" novels with notable appeal for young adults. It's a zombie apocalypse thing, but definitely a cut above. Having fun with it so far. Dude has an ear for dialogue and a protagonist with loads of moxy.

[alex]

For some reason, spending pretty much all of Sunday hanging out in second hand book stores in Redu (a small village in the Belgian province of Luxembourg, in which every other house is a used bookshop) seemed like a good idea at the time. Most of the bookshops, of course, had a very small (and not very good) selection of non-French books, and my ability to decipher French is virtually nonexistent these days, so there was not much for me to find there. Weirdly enough, however, within two minutes of arriving there, I did find one book that I was pretty enthusiastic about: Samuel Delany's Einstein Intersection. As my boyfriend accurately predicted, that turned out to be the only (non-French) book worth buying that we came across during the entire stay.

[milly balgeary]

Damn, Alex, I wouldn't say this to just anyone, but you are damn sophisticated. And you deigned hang out with those Redu rubes! SHIT... they was lucky!

[alex]

I wouldn't say this to just anyone, milly, but stop trolling.

But if you really do need help with reading comprehension: the gist of that post was that I'm kind of stupid for not speaking any French and yet hanging out in musty French bookshops most of the day (when walking around in the province of Luxembourg - a beautiful landscape, pretty near to where I live but usually not very accessible to me because I'm car-less - would have been available as an alternative). There were lots of good books to be found in Redu, but the vast majority of them were written in a language I can barely read. I'm the rube in this story.

[coldforge]

actually i think it's probably still milly

[edison]

Now I want to go to Redu and hang out in musty French bookshops!

[elpollodiablo]

I want to read some more Delaney. Only ever read Dhalgren, though I have a copy of Times Square Red, Times Square Blue.

[davy]

Picked this up today after reading that it won an Alex Award this year. The Alex Award is given annually to 10 "adult" novels with notable appeal for young adults. It's a zombie apocalypse thing, but definitely a cut above. Having fun with it so far. Dude has an ear for dialogue and a protagonist with loads of moxy.

Dig this quick character intro:

It is evident that he is the older of the two, not because of any physical indications but rather simply as a result of the spiritual weight he seems to lug around on his shoulders. He is paler than his brother, and dark in the places where his brother is light. His eyes are sunken and weary, broken of all the plastic dignity in Richard's gaze. Nonetheless, he is handsome in a severe way--the kind of man who makes Temple's insides roil around all curious and bothered.

Like I said, a cut above. Writing like this is not exactly typical of the YA horror genre.

[elpollodiablo]

I started Rising Up and Rising Down again, and Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain. I need to move into some of my heavier theory reading before I get back around to Gravity's Rainbow and Catch-22 again.

But since I really, really want to read it and absolutely can't justify *actually* reading it, I grabbed the unabridged Game of Thrones audiobook today, for listenin' while doing dishes, laundry, exercising, etc. Unfortunately this likely will push out all of my podcasts which are like my last source of current news and commentary, so by the end of the summer I fully expect to be a backward, uninformed yob whose only intellectual engagement derives from trauma theory and high fantasy. SUMMER VACATION WHAT WHAT

[davy]

The Ice & Fire audiobooks are fantastic. I'm listening to Storm of Swords right now, read by the spectacular (and drunken?) Roy Dotrice:



This is exactly the dude I want as my spluttering guide to Westeros.

[morgan]

Thumbs up to that, Davy. Thumbs up.

I can't do audio books. Just can't concentrate enough on listening.

[hannah]

Instead of doing my work, I spent the last couple of days reading this:



Now all I want to do is read another book about basketball. God damn these papers I have to write.

[elpollodiablo]

Getting up and deciding what to read each morning from a huge list is a life-affirming experience.

[jebreject]

M bought me a kindle for my birthday. I'm pretty excited, though I feel like I can't properly start using it until I've read all the books I bought in the last six months (around twenty of them, I'd wager)

[mixed cats]

Leviticus is batshit.

[elpollodiablo]

Someone on Demonoid compiles all 35 titles from the NY Times fiction & nonfiction bestseller list every week and updates the torrent: http://goo.gl/ToJi2

[nonotyet]

I guess the point where I decided to stop reading this book was the scene where a monster dude thing is fighting the main character and RIPS OFF HIS OWN EYEBROWS and they TURN INTO EYEBROW BATS that ATTACK THE OTHER GUY'S FACE.

EYEBROW BATS.

[mixed cats]

I admit that eyebrow bats make me want to read it.

[nonotyet]

There are parts of it that are really funny, and it's written well --I stuck it out to almost page 75--and I would encourage anyone who is sincerely into horror literature to read it, and I sincerely tried, but as it turns out I am something of a giant pussy.

[Nick Ink]

Did I ever tell you about the time I met a Venezualan with an earbrow? Probably the wrong thread.

[elpollodiablo]

Would any of you guys be interested in (re)reading Gravity's Rainbow in a group discussion this summer? I have to read it again for school and I'm trying to make a thing happen on Facebook.