am reading a novella to prepare for a second attempt at the terrible book I gave up on last year. the warm-up is 80 pages and so far I have a 4:1 ratio of pages read to pages of notes/criticism
will I finish before they both have to return to the library? probably no
iām reading the psysiogonomy by jeffery ford and itās really eerie how the pseudoscientist from the fascist fantasy world who views anatomical flaws as the sole driving engine of fate has essentially the same orientation toward the world as me when i was a just-post-undergraduate NPR liberal who had mostly read shit available at borders
thank god i was too mentally ill to have a lucrative or stable career, i might have gotten stuck like that
anyway yeah real heel of a main character, fantasy world has notes of grotesque tragicomedy, very relevant to current events, so far the logic the fascist state runs on and the psychological adaptations people have to make to it is basically like where iām from
Iām still perturbed how much this section from joanna russās the female man reads like something Iād have reblogged on tumblr circa 2007
trying to read more poetry this year, starting with robert lowellās notebook 1967-68. the oracular tone can be a bit much for me at times but sometimes the combination of odd detail and twisty, building reflection really works in a way thatās new to me
still picking up and going through those daedelus surrealist writing anthologies. thereās a good one by jean ferry, a writer iām curious about - someone put his short piece āthe society tigerā online and i really liked it, so going to see if i can track down a recent book translating his stuff
whatās the meaning of this word, I canāt find it in English dictionary at hand
Dedalus Books is a publisher that does a lot of niche anthologies including two volumes of surrealist literature. I know them more for their fantasy anthologies (a couple were edited by brian stableford)
Read The Moving Target pretty quickly this week. Really fun thriller. Excited to read more of this series.
I try to alternate between fiction and non fiction so I have started this to again try to read more leftist books
oof, parenti is dogshit
that book is fine to read lol, anyone who is genuinely interested in communism has to learn how to separate the bullshit from facts at some point, and what better arena of the mind than a parenti book with zero citations for any of his arguments. you dont have to believe in every single thing he says and, in fact, should not
parentiās just another in the long line of american radlibs pretending to be communist but canāt get over their taste for bootleather
I would have been more concerned if the book linked was his milosevic defense council treatise or something. blackshirts and reds Gets People Thinking so I think its fine to read if you donāt plan on basing your entire world view on it (please donāt base your world view on any single book)
Parentiās best work was being sampled by Choking Victim and going on Roseanneās show in 2008 for one of the most disastrous hours in am radio history
heās barely more legitimate than grover furr but yeah a big part of why I think heās literal dogshit is his frequent defenses of genocide
same tier as chomsky and chomsky is literally a defense department apparatchik
chomsky is a pedophile too lol, heās all over the epstein files. the american āleftā is very principled.
Btw you should check out the movie āHarperā starting Paul Newman if you liked that Lew Archer bookā¦I thought it was a great adaptation and Lauren Bacall is fucking crazy good in it
Iām reading The Shadow of the Dalai Lama, I found it when I searched Hitler, Buddha, Krishna, and I got the homepage of authors. Because of the cover and it was available for free, first I thought it was a political pamphlet.
After spending a week finished the first three chapters, I discovered it was a rational book that covered a wide range of topics and deeply discussed the core of religion and witchcraft. Though I known very well about Buddhism, it still has rich inspiration writing on cults, which is far beyond simply exposing the sin of Dalai Lama. Sometimes I jump from the bed when I reconsider some points at the midnight, and consult anthropology books (I bought many books about slaughterhouse trauma, human sacrifice and headhunters last year), it slows down my progress. Maybe I wonāt start reading Hitler, Buddha, and Krishna until next year.
Knocked this out in a day. Pretty breezy and fun.
btw the bookās explanation of the whole structure of Buddhism also helped me understood the logic behind of the behavioral pattern of Fire Ceremony (not what looks like in the article) and why they choice to burn some special object, that had been keep in my mind for a long time after I read Rudieās thread.
Got through Generosity by Richard Powers and The Wizard of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar during slow time at work last month. Got both at Chicago Public Library which was significant because Generosity is very much set in Chicago and I think thatās why it was the only Powers novel they had. Iād credit @OneSecondBefore who I think mentioned Powers and The Magician in the previous thread.
These were my first two non-fiction things in a few years. Both were good but Magician was way more enjoyable. Iād say maybe be Iām a bit dazzled because they were time killers in a boring environment with limited access to online and computer-fun.
Generosity, from 2007, is one of those works that feels incredibly dated from being topical in its time. The writing is flowery and fun, maybe sometimes a bit over-clever. It was pretty good as a Chicago novel with facsimileās of either Columbia or Roosevelt College and also a bizarrely Irish Oprah. I felt seen in that 2/3 main characters were a Logan Square boyfriend and a Lakeview girlfriend.
6/10
The Magician of Tiger Castle was great. Itās a perfect book to pick up for a few minutes and put down. A real snack. I remember reading Wayside School as a kid and it feels just as easy.
Not much to say other than itās an easy recommend. I guess itās worth saying that while it is an adult novel the fact that there are near zero vulgarities is significant and I think a brainy preteen could enjoy it. The lack of curse words is actually significant to the story.
10/10
Awesome, Iām glad you liked Magician of Tiger Castle! I agree, itās a 10/10.
So, earlier I posted that I bought Richard Powersā new novel Playground. Update on that: I havenāt actually picked it up yet, but I kept seeing intense praise for his novel The Overstory, so I went and grabbed that one too. Iāve read the first chapter. I really liked it. Definitely flowery prose that took some effort, but not totally obscurantist or anything. I learned some cool stuff about chestnut trees too. Iāve been reluctant to dive back in though because Iāve been totally hooked by Richard Starkās Parker books. Iām gonna get back to it soon though.
