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Rate the latest book you've read.

Started by Mr.Obvious, July 14, 2014, 05:29:28 AM

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Baruch

Quote from: trdsf on February 10, 2017, 02:39:20 PM
I have just bought my third copy of Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach.  I have quite literally read its two predecessors to pieces.  And my copy of his Metamagical Themas is starting to get a little ratty...

We tried a reading club on GEB ... but nobody was serious.  I got thru page 150, then gave up, because it was the sound of one hand clapping.  If you can even read that book, let alone understand it (I am only on second reading, years later) ... you are smarter than you claim to be.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mr.Obvious

#91
I'm running a bit behind.

I read the dunk & Egg novella's on my Ereader. They were great. I could reall see this becoming the spin-off to GOT, though I'd love to see something about Robert's rebellion too.
8.5/10.

I'm still reading "I have no enemies, I know no hate", by liu xiaobo. It's good, but I needed something to take a break from it. Hence the next one. I'll finish it, but I don't know when.  8.0/10 for now.

I read 'The Good Guy' by Dean Koontz. I found it a second hand shop fof a euro. Koontz is an amusing writer. Once in a while his thrillers and novels are outstanding, like 'Life Expectancy'. Life Expectancy deserves a 9/10 in my book. The Good Guy, however, is one of his more standard works. I'd still give it a 6.5/10 however, and say it's a solid read for on a holiday. 95% of the book is entertaining, and maybe it's not fair that those few things, mostly converging at the last 5% of the book, drag down it's score so much. But an ending can be just as important as the thrill of the ride.
I'm just glad I only paid 1 euro for it, as paying full price would've sucked. I paid full price for Life Expectancy, but that wasn't so bad because it was great.
The Good Guy breathes Koontz' style. From the unspoken 'unique' connection between the protagonist and the love-interest/deuteragonist. (Unique meaning here that they just happen to get eachother, both having been the odd ones out in their lives until they meet eachother. It's Koontz trademark, and either a bit too obvious in this one, or I've read it too often already.) To the powers from the protagonist and his sidekick (and the sidekick's pet) bordering on superhuman. Just not quite there, but really pushing the brink of what we can consider within the bounds of humanity; i'm talking impossible reflexes, heightened rationalizing skills, practical wits beyond compare, dogs that can sense impossible to sense phenomena, ...

So the ride and premise are great. A guy at a bar gets mistaken first for a murderer-for-hire and shortly thereafter as the cliënt wanting to assasinate a woman. What follows is his attempt to outsmart the assassin and keep the woman safe, all the while trying to figure out who wants her dead, and why.
The villain, a bit bland, is entertaining enough to keep you invested.
But the pay-off is weak.

[spoiler]
The final confrontation  with the killer is good enough, but you never once feel like the protagonist is in danger. It turns out there's a big government conspiracy, while this story would've been much better without it. If it had just been some guy who wanted the girl dead, it would have made for a much more believeable story. This one stretched our willingness to believe the fiction too much. Both in how the shadow-government operates, how they get shut down, how they act after the protagonist foils their plan, ...
Tim, the protagonist is also a war-veteran and hero; having saved hundreds of lives. He doesn't want to be seen as one, however. What would've made the story much better as well, would've been if instead of saving hundreds of lives, he felt responsible for horrendous war-crimes and yet was still commended for his service. It would've given his character much more depth, as well as been a good twist on the title of the book. I think his service was meant to be a giant plot-twist, but I saw it coming. And I was hoping for it to be something horendous, rather than heroic. I was dissapointed. [/spoiler]
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Baruch

Only reading non-fiction right now ... did get an interesting bio of Cicero the other day, by Anthony Everitt.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

missingnocchi

Purple Hibiscus - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Adichie is unquestionably a craftsman of character, which is what makes it so disappointing that the narrator is by far the least interesting one in the novel. The premise is that she and her brother have grown up in an extremely strict upper-middle class Catholic home in Nigeria, but begin to undergo transformations when they are exposed to the side of their family that is more in touch with the old traditions of the Igbo. Both of these transformations are very quiet for the bulk of the novel, and in the case of the narrator, very shallow. It seems to me that any one of the other major charaters - the brother, whose transformation ultimately proves to be a deep (yet woefully underexplored) one; the devout, autocratic father; the passively complicit yet deeply troubled mother; the frail and disowned traditionally-religious grandfather; the brash and righteous aunt; the rebellious cousin - would have been a better choice, anyone but the sponge we got. That's not to say that she is portrayed unrealistically or inconsistently. Her inner monologue does, I imagine, quite well reflect that of the quiet, obedient religious girl we all probably knew in high school. It's just that that sort of character isn't compelling, and remains so for the larger part of the book. I do think Adichie is quite a skilled author on the whole, and I could say a lot about her ability to portray, for example, how a man who considers his family an extension of himself behaves when things fall apart (which happens to be the title I read immediately prior to this, and which covers similar ground in that respect). I do look forward to reading her other novels, which I have heard are better, and it's incredible what she achieved with her debut.

I give it a 'read it if you're really interested in modern Nigeria' out of ten.
What's a "Leppo?"

Cavebear

Last book I read was 'Guns, Germs and Steel'.  Explained everything about why Eurasians rose to power and not Africans or Native Americans.  Not racist, just better domesticatable plants and animals.  And surviving the diseases that came with them.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on April 30, 2017, 07:19:25 AM
Last book I read was 'Guns, Germs and Steel'.  Explained everything about why Eurasians rose to power and not Africans or Native Americans.  Not racist, just better domesticatable plants and animals.  And surviving the diseases that came with them.

Read Collapse by Jared Diamond next, the sequel is to go extinct for.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

To extend my post, as a child I lived outside in the very dirty world.  Lived with a dog and a cat and a turtle and a parakeet inside.  Handled them often.  I have not had a cold or flu in 45 years and was seldom sick before that.  And when I was, I was up and about in a day.  I caught the flu at 12.  So did my brother.  He was in bed for days.  I was healthy and bored in bed the next day.  I'm immune.

I spent 30 years commuting with young mothers who had sick kids and were sick almost all the time themselves.  We spent an hour to work and an hour back with them coughing germs in the enclosed car all the time.  They made each other ill.  Me?  Nothing!  Sailed right through.

I should get tested...

Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Mike Cl

Quote from: Cavebear on May 02, 2017, 06:23:03 AM
To extend my post, as a child I lived outside in the very dirty world.  Lived with a dog and a cat and a turtle and a parakeet inside.  Handled them often.  I have not had a cold or flu in 45 years and was seldom sick before that.  And when I was, I was up and about in a day.  I caught the flu at 12.  So did my brother.  He was in bed for days.  I was healthy and bored in bed the next day.  I'm immune.

I spent 30 years commuting with young mothers who had sick kids and were sick almost all the time themselves.  We spent an hour to work and an hour back with them coughing germs in the enclosed car all the time.  They made each other ill.  Me?  Nothing!  Sailed right through.

I should get tested...
Wow!  God must love you!!!!
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Hydra009

Quote from: Cavebear on May 02, 2017, 06:23:03 AM
To extend my post, as a child I lived outside in the very dirty world.  Lived with a dog and a cat and a turtle and a parakeet inside.  Handled them often.  I have not had a cold or flu in 45 years and was seldom sick before that.  And when I was, I was up and about in a day.  I caught the flu at 12.  So did my brother.  He was in bed for days.  I was healthy and bored in bed the next day.  I'm immune.

I spent 30 years commuting with young mothers who had sick kids and were sick almost all the time themselves.  We spent an hour to work and an hour back with them coughing germs in the enclosed car all the time.  They made each other ill.  Me?  Nothing!  Sailed right through.

I should get tested...
You should donate some cells to science so they can find out your secret and hopefully pass it on to more vulnerable people.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Cavebear on May 02, 2017, 06:23:03 AM
To extend my post, as a child I lived outside in the very dirty world.  Lived with a dog and a cat and a turtle and a parakeet inside.  Handled them often.  I have not had a cold or flu in 45 years and was seldom sick before that.  And when I was, I was up and about in a day.  I caught the flu at 12.  So did my brother.  He was in bed for days.  I was healthy and bored in bed the next day.  I'm immune.

I spent 30 years commuting with young mothers who had sick kids and were sick almost all the time themselves.  We spent an hour to work and an hour back with them coughing germs in the enclosed car all the time.  They made each other ill.  Me?  Nothing!  Sailed right through.

I should get tested...


I, too, hardly ever get sick. I attribute at least part of that to the fresh, unprocessed milk we drank when I was in my early teens at the foster home I was then at. I had to milk the damned cow early every morning and every evening, so I'm glad I got something out of all that work. I had very strong hands, as well. I don't even remember the last time I got sick, but who really knows if the one thing had anything at all to do with the other...
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

trdsf

Read the Welcome to Night Vale novel.  Good read, the way it's written you can hear the prose in Cecil's voice in your mind's ear -- it many ways it's a novel-length WtNV podcast, written down.  Seemed to be a bit rushed at the end, like they decided they needed to wrap it up in x number of pages, but it neatly closes out one of the early chapters in the Night Vale storyline.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

Mr.Obvious

Terry pratchett's 'raising steam'.
The first discworld book i read out of order. I had a coupon for my e-reader and it was The only available one left. Ironically for a book about trains, it runs a bit too smoothly. The force opposing The heroes is barely given face. And The good guys have no quarrel amongst themselves. So i never felt the same tension as in other discworld novels. Stilla good read though. Filled with wit as only The late sir knew how. And to see The characters take on any task on that flat world, is always a treat.

Been Reading 'the colour of magic', The first discworld novel, again. Amazing how both his style and The disc itself have evolved over The decades.

8/10
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Cavebear

Anyone read the Hominid series by Robert Sawyer?  I have them.  Not sure they are worth the effort.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!