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Media Books

My latest readings:

- Blindness by José Saramago

Excellent book with an interesting premise. It explores in depth what happens when everyone is blind, and describes the emotions felt in a way that makes you empathise with those struck by blindness. The struggles of being unable to see, and how people behave when they don't see. It's very crude in some points, and it is a book I 100% recommend everyone to read.

- Jealousy by Alfredo Oriani

A novel about a practicing lawyer and the main lawyer's wife falling in love. It explores both the sentimental aspect of such a treacherous love, as well as what happens when one of the people in the relationships has motivations that go beyond love. It describes well the slow descent to madness of someone who loves a person he can never consider as his, and from whom he even has a child,, but he has to keep it as a secret. Overall, it was a good book which I enjoyed, I'd recommend it if you're into this type of reading (think Wuthering Heights).

- Il Gioco degli Immortali by Massimo Mongai

I couldn't find out whether this book had an English translation, so I went with the Italian title, which would roughly translate to "The Game of the Immortals". This book is spectacularly mediocre, which is a damn shame, as some passages were excellent, but my god some parts were so incredibly dumb. For example the two populations that live in the forest were somewhat interesting, and overall seeing the main character come up with ways to stall the Genius were interesting, but some other parts were terrible. For example the part where the MC goes into the inverted pyramid in the ground and finds entire new civilizations, part human part cyborg, and they are all born out of assisted fertilization out of a human woman??? And why did the MC create a massive tank of death and never actually used it except to sleep in it?

It is clear the author had some heavy Sci-Fi influences such as by Asimov and Gibson, but please if you have to try and emulate these authors at least make sure your choices make sense within the context of the universe. I do NOT recommend this, even if you managed to find a copy in your language of choice.

- Primordia: L'alleanza by J. A. Wingdale

This is a book by an up and coming young Italian author, and it does not have an English translation nor it is known at all, so I'll keep this brief. Nice short fantasy novel that is the beginning of a series. It is well written and it has decent worldbuilding and characters, although it stops there: it is nice, but nothing I would recommend, at least for now. Hopefully the pace will pick up in the next entries of the series, and then it'll be great and something I'd recommend, but as of now I don't think I would.

I am currently reading "Berlin Alexanderplatz" by Alfred Döblin and I'm enjoying it, although I'm still at the beginning.
 
I thought I "gave up" books a long time ago...but I kind of realized there are some great stories I want to re-read, and some I haven't read yet at all.
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Just nabbed all these from a bookstore yesterday. I've heard great things about the sprawl trilogy, stainless steel rat is extremely nostalgic, and I never read the ender novels as a kid and heard this was the best compliment to them since I already read the movie?

Also, I've been reading this extremely amazing webcomic for 5 years now and just decided to collect all the hardcover novelizations. Which is a tall task, considering the old ones are out of print and very very expensive to find used. But if the bookstore classifies it as a book then call me a book reader
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This is just barely a "book", but I got a special thing in the mail today...Corocoro Comic's November 1996 issue. It's a very special comic, as it was what revealed Japanese Pokemon Blue to the public, and made it available via mail order until its re-release in 1999 alongside Pokemon Yellow. It's also gained notoriety among "Pokemon historians" for featuring sprites that didn't make it into the final game. It cost me ~4,000 yen including postage, or £28 GBP. Not bad.

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The main reason I got this was for the purpose of scanning the sprites here and uploading them online. There are scans around currently, but they're not very good. Here's the page from the right image in full from zoidsland;
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The main issue with the scan here is that it's more of a very close-up photo...which causes the specifics to be lost. My intention is to put the page into a proper scanner and produce higher-quality images. This way the sprites would be easier to reconstruct and use for things like ROM Hacks. More sprites came out in the December 1996 issue as well, but I can't find that one for the life of me.
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If anyone's ever wanting to get Japanese books for some reason, then Kosho is definitely the place to go. It's where I got this, and while payment methods vary, it's still great and has some stuff you can't even hope to get internationally. Just know that you'll need either a very good translator - DeepL is quite good - or knowledge of Japanese. Have your email handy too, as many stores will often send invoices and communicate with you through it regarding postage. PayPal isn't really a standard payment option, you'll often do bank transfers.
 
On my masters course I have to write a dissertation in the summer so I've been reading some maths/financial maths theory to try and find inspiration. Before the last term started, I read Benoit Mandlebrot's book on fractal geometry where he attempts to apply it to the financial markets (The (mis)behaviour of markets: a fractal view of risk, ruin, and reward).

While I agree with his criticisms of certain schools of thought and a lot of the observations he makes, I didn't think there was enough evidence to agree with with his conclusions. I think the link between fractal geometry describing the stochastic processes of stock prices was a bit of a leap of faith, and in the words of my previous boss - whom I discussed this with - "this guy is an amateur".

RIP Mandlebrot though. Fractal geometry is cool outside of finance and there are loads of Youtube videos and books about his work on that. Check them out if you're a maths fan.
 
Plague von Karma said:
words!!!
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Got hold of a printer to scan it. It's not as high-quality as I'd desire, but it seems to be better than the old one. There's a 1200 DPI scan of the page here too.

As an example of the quality diff...
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My scan​
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The pixels from zoidsland's were a bit fuzzier and ill-defined, making it difficult to determine where certain things go. Raticate's eye is actually visible now, and you can see where the pixels were actually meant to be. Overall, a great success. The sprites can likely be reconstructed.
 
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What's up fellas, here are the latest books I have read:

- Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey

I'm torn on this book. On one hand I appreciate its narrative style, and the plot has some interesting events, on the other hand I did not enjoy it as much. I don't know why, but it felt like a slog, and the book is rather short. I appreciated the description of all the good and bad effects of the opium, but at the end of the book all I could think of was "so what?". It's a book with its ups and downs, some passages are amazing, some are awful, and it's a shame, because the narrative style is excellent.

I don't particularly recommend this book. I'm interested in "Murder as one of the Fine Arts" by the same author and I hope it's going to be more enjoyable for me.

- The Handmaiden's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I wish the book explained how the world's society worked more in-depth, but nonetheless I enjoyed it. It has an interesting setting and it is narrated from a powerless figure in a society that has lost every value by professing them to an extreme. I'm seeing some parallels to the current world, and the way some facets of society are operating at the moment.

It's how I'd expect a society ruled a certain way to become. The book is gritty and you can feel how tense the atmosphere of the world is. As I said, my biggest gripe with it is that I hoped for a bit more description of the events of the world; think "1984", you know a lot about it: the Ministries, the war between the superpowers, and how easily the masses were manipulated.

Granted, the protagonist doesn't really know much about the world because she isn't a funcionary of the government unlike Winston, but she still has memories about the old world. perhaps the news that she followed during the meetings with Serena Joy while waiting for the Commander could be expanded upon to include more worldbuilding, and they could have been interpreted by the protagonist to offer a better look into her personality and her efelings.

Regardless, This is a book I'd recommend to anyone, it is a great readm and it is .

- Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin

Oh boy where do I start with this. This was quite the read, the book is filled up with nonsense (or...expressionism, if you prefer), but there is a method to the madness of the narration. Franz Bieberkopf is way too human, you can TELL he is human, very few books are able to make you feel like the protagonists are human, but this is one of the few. Most other books narrate of idealized individuals, they have idealized thoughts and are somewhat predictable in the way they face reality. I'd argue that even psychologically complex characters like Ōba from "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai, or Heathcliff from "Wuthering Heights" are not as human as Bieberkopf is.

Everything that happens to Franz, and everything he does makes sense, and shows off the multiple facets of the human soul, Franz Bieberkopf's soul in this case. It isn't a simple "oh I'm like this so I will act like that", but his decisions are...human. They aren't entirely logical, and he manages to make them sound like they make sense, and it is how mots humans operate.

The other characters in the book are also incredible, you can feel like they are real people, you can find something to appreciate in them even when they are disgusting, like Reinhold, Eva, and Mieze (for different reasons).

This book is a masterpiece. Read it. It is a 10 out of 10 for me, I'm in love with it. It's perfect. It is chaotic, but it also all makes way too much sense.
 
Recently got the His Dark Materials trilogy after having been a huge fan of Narnia. I was told it's the complete antithesis of the series and ngl it did not disappoint, really like the way the series make subtle allusions to religion (also a major theme in Narnia) but takes a completely different view on the matter, would definitely recommend the series to any fan of the fantasy genre.
 
FantinaFan said:
really like the way the series make subtle allusions to religion
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Subtle’s not the word I’d use—if anything it’s the opposite lol: very openly anti-religion.

Also have you read either of the prequel books yet? I’ve read the first volume of The Book of Dust but haven’t got around to the second yet.
 
Martin said:
Subtle’s not the word I’d use—if anything it’s the opposite lol: very openly anti-religion.

Also have you read either of the prequel books yet? I’ve read the first volume of The Book of Dust but haven’t got around to the second yet.
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Nope, I've only started on the trilogy and I'm almost done with the first book, it's been on my list of books to read for almost 3 years so I'm glad i found the time to get to it lol
 
As a child I only read books unwillingly until I was about 10 and discovered people wrote books about animals. By the age of 12, I expanded into historical fiction. At 15, I read my first science fiction book, which while dated, remains a favourite to this day (I'm 61). That book was Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I never stopped reading since then, though my main issue these days is increasingly bad eyesight so that I only read on my ipad (since there I can change the font size lol) These days I read almost anything except horror, paranormal romances and foreign languages...
 
recently got gifted two books on Black Metal history from a friend who knows I'm a fan of the genre I'm looking forward to reading.

Lords Of Chaos (ive known of this one as do most for awhile)
& Black Metal: Evolution Of The Cult
 
I just finished reading Atlas Shrugged. All 3 books.

What a rollercoaster. I loved every second of it.

The book has it all: characters you love, characters you hate, an interesting theme, and excellent word-building. You can feel the despair in the world once the people in power manage to completely annihilate critical thinking from the population. Everyone just outsources their thoughts to their boss, nobody takes any initiative, the overwhelming majority of the population turns into a zombie.

My favorite character in the book is Hank Rearden, closely followed by Dagny Taggart. I feel like I could have also liked Ragnar Dannesköld a lot more if he appeared more often. Francisco D'Antonia is another excellent character, whereas I was not a fan of John Galt, I found him to be a bit too idealized.

I liked the way the author portrays people like Jim Taggart and Wesley Mouch. I also loved the way they realized what was wrong with their thought at the end of the book. It was liberating to read.

I think the extreme objectivism preached in the book is not practical in the real world, and relies on idealized human beings. I'm a fan of capitalism and free markets, but the individualism expressed in Atlas Shrugged goes way beyond that. It ignores some facets of human nature, and it doesn't work without some crazy social engineering. It has flaws that make it not worth pursuing to such an extreme degree.

The next book I'll read is going to be "La Quinda Essenza" by Paolo Borzacchiello, an Italian neurolinguist (think George Lakoff but Italian). Afterwards, I'll read "Breasts and Egg" by Mieko Kawakami, and then "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

I have read other books in the past month and a half, they were mostly non-fiction. Some of them don't have an English version, here's the list:
  • "How To Fail at Almost Everything And Still Win Big" by Scott Adams
  • "Parole per Vendere" by Paolo Borzacchiello (no English version afaik)
  • "La Parola Magica" by Paolo Borzacchiello (same as above)
  • "Don't Think of an Elephant!" by George Lakoff
I'm currently reading "The Oxygen Advantage" by Patrick G McKeown and "Personality isn't Permanent" by Benjamin Hardy.
 
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The deadness of this thread is tragic.

I've been dwelving into more philosophical matters recently which is why I haven't posted as much. My reading has slown down because it takes me longer to process what I'm reading.

Plus, after reading "Atlas Shrugged" I embarked on another very long read: The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Problem is I wasn't too much into it, and only read the first volume + about 25% of the second one. Still, it's a very fascinating read into the law and prison system in communist Russia from the end of the 1st world war. Good insight into how tyrannical governments operate.

I've been reading "The Problem With Political Authority" by Michael Huemer, a brilliant reading that I recommend to anyone disillusioned with these huge monsters that are current governments.

I've also been doing some soul-searching, and I've been reading Edward Feser's "The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism". I'm greatly enjoying the read, but I'm not well versed in the argument, which is why I'm taking my sweet time to read it. I often have to re-read chapters to fully understand what's written. Nonetheless, I find the philosophical inquiry into religion very interesting, I wish I studied this in school.

Back to fiction: I've just finished reading "The Hare" by Melanie Finn. I didn't enjoy it one bit. It had some interesting parts, but most of the book was spectacularly mediocre. Which is a shame, the author's writing style isn't without merit, it's just that the story she decided to narrate was trashy.

I'm starting a new book today, but I don't know which one yet.
 
I'm back. Fresh as a flower.

My last 2 readings were:

- "Little Bandaged Days" by Kyra Wilde

Mediocre book about a woman's descent into madness. I didn't particularly enjoy it. The narration is exhausting and repetitive, and the characters might as well be replaced by plastic dolls since they never do anything.

Don't read this book.

- "The Woman in the White Kimono" by Ana Johns

I stumbled upon this by chance as it was included with my Amazon Prime subscription and I downloaded it. It's a touching story about love, bravery, and family struggles. Read it, it's very good! It's set in post-WWII Japan, with American soldiers stationing in the island. The struggle is between the main character Naoko, her love for an American soldier, and her family refusing to accept a gaijin (foreigner) as an husband of their daughter.

I started reading "Breasts and Eggs" by Mieko Kawakami but it bored me within the first 25 pages. That's super rare for me. I had to drop the book. I started reading "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand afterwards. I've only read chapter 1 but I'm already in love with the main character.

I'm also delving into "Knowledge, Reality and Value - a Mostly Common Sense Guide to Philosophy" by Michael Huemer as I really enjoyed his book I mentioned in my last post. I'm still a newbie when it comes to Philosohpy and this book is a great introduction to it.
 
most of what i read is scraps but i may as well give a recommendation from one of my courses

Russia's Military Revival - Bettina Renz. If you thought from the title it's making Russia some evil terrifying boogeyman, don't worry, it doesn't do that. Chapters 4 and 5 give a reasonable assessment of the tactical and strategic position of the modern Russian military and are less than 70 pages of text total, so, like, that's neat. 1 and 2 are good history, and 3 is some of both but a bit specific. Good read that gets GPer's stamp of approval on being well-written and structured.
 
Finally got time to read "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie, found it at my local library with its original, and extremely racist, name which was surprising as it was renamed multiple times as far back as 1940. Although the name was very hard to ignore I really enjoyed the book! Its like THE most classic murder mystery "who did it" style that was really fun to go back to. Its the start of the typical "strangers in a mansion and one of them is a killer" that has been referenced countless times, but the plot was super fun to follow and dissect to find clues of who the killer could be with an ending and explanation that is crazy enough that it feels pretty satisfying, but also fully makes sense. Would recommend :)
 
if you like poetry i just read 2 books by Filipino autor José Rizal: Noli Me Tángere and El filibusterismo (in english The reign of Greed) both are books treating of the horrors of spanish colonisalism era in the phillipines
 
Shoshana Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism details how the modern economy is being increasingly driven by constant, "private" (in the sense of being undertaken by private corporations) surveillance of consumers and both the sale of data from that surveillance as a resource (termed "behavioural surplus"), and the means of manipulating consumer behaviour as a service. It's one of the most important books for understanding how democracies around the world are being actively threatened by the actions of a select few technology companies, and how this privatised form of surveillance is inevitably integrated into state-actor surveillance capabilities (as in the People's Republic of China) and intelligence operations, such as that undertaken by the Russian Federation to elect Donald Trump and instigate the United Kingdom's exit from the EU.

If anyone here has watched Psycho Pass or Westworld (pinging resident nerd Myzozoa ), think of this as a much more academic criticism of the surveillance economy than what was presented in the respective shows. Technology is literally at the point where political outcomes can be manipulated entirely by foreign actors so long as they 1) have enough psychometric data from target populations to create propaganda for specific psychological profiles; and 2) a platform from which to deploy that propaganda.

My primary criticism of Zuboff's work has been the inability to integrate analysis of some of the important non-western actors involved in these efforts. One of the biggest ones was Dmitro Firtash, who in addition to being the oligarch at the centre of Rudy Giuliani's legal trouble is also a major financial backer of Cambridge Analytica's parent company, the offices of the elections-focused subsidiary which were held in the same damn building as Firtash's own foundation lol
 
I read the first four books of the Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist: Magician: Apprentice, Magician: Master (I think those two are in one book but split in two because the one book is so long), Silverthorn, and A Darkness at Sethanon.

A really cool fantasy/adventure series! It tells a lot of things, among them kingdoms, war, religion, and magic. Really fun read, definately would recommend!
Queenzz said:
Finally got time to read "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie, found it at my local library with its original, and extremely racist, name which was surprising as it was renamed multiple times as far back as 1940. Although the name was very hard to ignore I really enjoyed the book! Its like THE most classic murder mystery "who did it" style that was really fun to go back to. Its the start of the typical "strangers in a mansion and one of them is a killer" that has been referenced countless times, but the plot was super fun to follow and dissect to find clues of who the killer could be with an ending and explanation that is crazy enough that it feels pretty satisfying, but also fully makes sense. Would recommend :)
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My class read that for our second quarter required normal. It was a fun read, except that there were worksheets, quizzes, entire vocab units, and a test about it.
 
recently backlogged myself heavy on books going on a buying spree (LOL)

currently carry around At the Mountain Of Madness by Lovecraft (got his collection)
my kindle (main reads atm: Corey Taylor's books - and wrestling autobiographies)
and occassionally some occult books i have recently found interesting.

if anyone got some good psychological horror books im tryna find some [more] of those.
 
Recently got into Christopher Buehlman books - starting with Between Two Fires (omg so good) and Those Across The River (his first two books)
also got The Broken Empire series by Mark Lawrence (Prince Of Thorns, King Of Thorns, Emperor Of Thorns)
(both of these are good for those who like dark fantasy books)
got the Young Bucks book for Kindle who like wrestling. Very backlogged in my wrestling book realm - main one I want to read I have ready waiting atm is Bill Apter's "Is Pro Wrestling Fixed?..." and my one wrestling book shame: Havent got the chance to read a Jericho book yet. (I KNOW I KNOW, SHAME ON ME)
and for collections Lord of the Rings, HG Wells, and a really nice printing of Edgar Allan Poe's works.

edit* oh and on my sisters bday she wanted to go to one of those crystals/tarot/magic shops and i got a book about the magic of the necronimicon; since i own it already, for morbid curiosity lol
 
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I seriously recommend The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. It's a really long and complex book that is absolutely worth taking your time on and really absorbing every bit of information in. It's set in gold rush New Zealand in the 1860s and you will be transported to this other world that she creates for you. The book does require knowing a bit about astrology, so learn a little before you go in - it will increase your enjoyment of the book a lot. Seriously try this book, you won't regret it.
 
I read many books since my last post, so I won't talk about them in detail.

I'll write a couple of sentences about what I liked / disliked, and whether or not I recommend the book.
  • Circe — Madeleine Miller
Novel about the Greek anti heroine Circe. Excellent mix of Greek mythology and human-like adventures. Recommended.
  • The Fascist Garden — Ernesto Masina
The story is set in a small mountain town in northern Italy. The population hates the Nazi occupation, and 3 people devise a plan to scare them away. Except the plan has unexpected consequences. This is a novel only available in Italian. But it's been talked about on national newspapers so maybe it'll get a translation? It's decent, but I wouldn't recommend it.
  • Brave New World — Aldous Huxley
Dystopian novel about social engineering on crack. Read this book. Link what happens there with what's happening in this world. Bathe in the despair. Must read.
  • Project Hail Mary — Andy Weir
Sci-Fi novel about a chemistry teacher trying to save our planet from a threatening life-form that's eating the sun. It manages to explain physics in a simple way. I understood most of it with very basic knowledge on the subject. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini
A girl born out of wedlock in Afghanistan tries to join her father's house. Instead she's forced to marry a violent man who hits her. Later on she's joined by another girl. It's a touching story about war, domestic violence, and treachery. Everyone should read this book. Must read.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo — Alexandre Dumas
The long journey of Edmond Dantès from lively sailor to disgraced prisoner to cold-hearted avenger. Another must read. It's THE literary masterpiece.
  • Fair Warning — Michael Connelly
The protagonist is a journalist who is a suspect for a woman's murder. In an effort to set himself free and publish an article that will get him back into the spotlight, he ends up unveiling a story bigger than him. It's ok, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it.
  • The Milanese kill on Saturday — Giorgio Scerbanenco
Crime novel about the abduction and murder of a woman with limited mental faculties. It's a gripping investigation that ends in a most surprising way. Recommended, though I'm not sure it's got an English translation.
  • The Stranger — Albert Camus
Absurdist novel about a man who gets sentenced to death. Excellent is an understatement. Read it.
  • Bonjour Tristesse — Françoise Sagan
I don't remember much about this novel. The style is gorgeous, but there is almost no substance. Perfect book if you want to improve your writing. Terrible book if you're looking for a story that will leave you something.
  • On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous — Ocean Vuong
I have mixed feelings about this book. I think the Italian translation ruined the experience. After reading it I thought "I feel like English would be a much better language for this book". Most of my reading is in English too, I don't know why I went for the Italian version. Still, I'd recommend it, provided you read it in English.
  • 1984 — George Orwell
Orwell's famous dystopian masterpiece. It's a captivating story set in a hyper-surveillance and propagandistic state. It shows the horrors of slavery by control of thought. Must read.
  • The Tao of Pooh — Benjamin Hoff
This is a (very westernized) introduction to Taoism. It draws parallels between Winnie the Pooh's cast and various Taoist concepts. It's a lovely read, even if you aren't into this sort of thing. You can learn a couple of things that will improve your life. Recommended.

Other assorted non-fiction books I've read: The Courage to be Disliked, As a Man Tinketh, I, Pencil. All exquisite books.

Right now I'm reading The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima. I'm almost halfway through it, and I'm loving it. I know I can recommend it, Mishima is always a safe bet.
 
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