The Literary Thread

[Stupot]

Most recently I thought I'd give The Dresden Files a try, since Dave Gilbert is such a big fan. I read the first two, and... I'm not sold. The plotting is OK (though the villains are obvious very early on in both books), but the characters are paper thin, and the writing is, well, awful.

I also recently tried reading The Dresden Files based off of Dave's recommendations. I thought book one was okay and a nice intro to the series, but I only made it halfway through the second book. I reeeally wanted to like it but it was really bad. I have been told that they get much better after book two, but I decided there are other books I'd rather be reading.

The best book I've read this year is Journey Under the Midnight Sun by Higashino Keigo. This tells the story of an ensemble of characters connected to the murder of a pawnbroker and the detective still trying to solve the case well after the statute of limitations has passed. It's one of those books where you pretty much know whodunnit fron very early on but the fun is in learning the hows and the whys and watching the detectives and other characters gradually work it out for themselves. A great book, and I'd basically recommend Higashino in general.

I also read Gillian Flynn's recent short story (which cost me the price of a full book), The Grown-Up. To be honest it was very weak compared to her novels. It played into her delicious theme of women being capable of outright evil. But in the end it felt like a cynical cash-in and I was a bit cross with myself for buying it.

Currently I'm reading Magic by William Goldman. I haven't really read enough to judge but I'm liking it so far. Very playfully written.

I'm also reading Captain Disater Collection by Dave Seaman. It's funny. You should all buy the e-book right now!

[Adeel]

I've been reading War and Peace for quite some time now, and savouring each and every page I get to read.

[CaptainD]

I'm also reading Captain Disater Collection by Dave Seaman. It's funny. You should all buy the e-book right now!

Best quote EVER!

[WHAM]

I've got two books going on right now.

A while back I felt like reading some horror, so I got my hands on a copy of Clive Barker's Books of Blood.
I'm a bit over halfway through it and so far it's been hit and miss with its short stories. There was one in particular that did get under my skin and actually robbed me of a night of sleep, but otherwise it's been a bit too over-the-top, a bit too full of sex for no real reason but to shock the reader and a bit too many silly plotlines for my taste.

The other book I'm reading is Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble by Antony Beevor, a brutally direct and detailed description of the Third Reich's final offensive in the west. After all the war-hero stories of great American heroes saving the day and winning the war in games, books and movies, it's refreshing to see descriptions of the harsh reality where even the Americans are actually affected by the horrors of war. A particularly memorable bit was an officer's account on how he watched an unwilling American soldier pick up a grenade, walk up to a large tree, pull the pin and hug said tree so he could blow up his hand and get sent away from the front. Likewise it shows how the German's nationalist fervor and insane level of fanaticism comes to bite them in the ass as, after an American unit mows down an attacking SS platoon, they discover all the men reeking of alcohol and all of thei water canteens filled with booze rather than water, with letters on the dead soldiers detailing how they've pre-emptively celebrated their victory "for the Fatherland" over the previous night.

A good read for history buffs, I'd say.

[Mandle]

I'm currently reading "If Chins Could Kill" by Bruce Campbell (the only God I would ever consider worshipping)...

Or I should probably say: rereading for the 7th time (or so)...

Whether you know of Bruce Campbell, or love him or hate him, or are somewhere in the middle, if that is possible:

For people like us here on AGS and what with our love for indie projects just for the sheer fun of creating something from nothing that at least a few people will get some enjoyment from:

This is a book that could speak to you... It speaks volumes to me way beyond its actual page count every time I read it...

[monkey424]

Hi folks. I lost interest in that half-baked conspiracy thread I started earlier, but it looks like that's all wrapped up now. Good riddance! But if you're interested, here's a good read by English professor Eric Larsen that suggests why that thread and the one that preceded it probably went nowhere:

Dr Judy Wood and the Future of the Earth

Otherwise, my reading typically consists of Peppa Pig, Winnie the Pooh, and Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy.

[Mandle]

Dr Judy Wood and the Future of the Earth

I tried to read this, man... I seriously tried...

But it is such a rambling and overwritten mess that I could not bring myself to drag my millimeter-tall scroll bar further down past the 15th paragraph or so...

Perhaps the real reason that these guys are in disbelief over how little impact their findings have upon us sheep is the simple fact that they are not good writers.

Who on earth is ever going to read something so badly overwritten with purple prose in every sentence, except for the people who already are invested in it???

The guy might have amazing, world changing things to say for all I know, but nobody is ever going to hear them unless he either gets better at self-editing (unlikely) or hires a professional editor to sort through his ramblings and go at them with a chainsaw...

[Danvzare]

Who on earth is ever going to read something so badly overwritten with purple prose in every sentence, except for the people who already are invested in it???

You've just described 90% of all books I've ever attempted to read.

Thankfully that remaining 10% makes it all worthwhile, I'm looking to you Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

[monkey424]

Danvzare

I have to say Hitchhiker's Guide is my favourite book of all time.
Another book I love (although we had to read it for school) is Lord of the Flies.

Mandle

Thanks for making an effort to read Eric Larsen's article. I think you make a valid point. The article is somewhat long-winded, perhaps to the detriment of the message, and it probably helps if you are invested in the subject. Note this is the fifth article in a series of five in which Larsen is primarily addressing the intellectuals of the literary / journalistic world. But he is also addressing intellectuals of the general public - people not unlike those who post in these forums. I know there are some smart people on these forums - smarter than me - but we all have our blind spots. I think there are qualities people should value other than being smart - humility is one of them; a quality not valued highly enough in society in my opinion.

I don't wish to ramble (and I'm sorry for gate-crashing your thread, Snarky) but here's an extract from Larsen's article that I really do think sums up the communication problems we've encountered on these forums:

“Here's what I think: I think that the fault that the great propaganda machine is still working is our fault. I think that the fault lies with you, me, with us. It lies with us thanks to our impotence-thinking and our impotence-writing, where sounding good passes itself off as doing good. The fault lies with us thanks to our intellectual laziness and to our obscenely bad educations. It lies with us becauseâ€"Searle was rightâ€"we are so logic-challenged that we behave like children and think we're wizards. It lies with us because we're really, really bad at science: We don't understand it, don't know what it is, don't know how it works. The fault lies with us because we're unsophisticated, unobservant, illogical, and unscientific enough to have been played for suckersâ€"first by one side, then by another side, then by a thirdâ€"for more than a decade, quarreling and fussing among ourselves while our wealth is stolen, our nation dismantled, and our culture turned ever more surely to swill.”

[Snarky]

That stuff really doesn't belong in this thread, monkey, and we won't have any more of it.

I also really like Hitchhiker's and Lord of the Flies. Undisputed classics.

The last book I read was The Unburied by Charles Palliser, which I got for Christmas. (I read his most famous novel, The Quincunx, a few years back and loved it.)

This one I didn't like much, unfortunately, though it has a very seasonally appropriate Victorian Christmas setting. It's a nested mystery where a scholar visiting a town famous for its cathedral tries to work out what happened with two mysterious deaths back in the 1600s, while also getting entangled in a murder in his own time and searching for the truth behind an even older manuscript. Oh, and at the same time he's working through some stuff he's long tried to forget from his university days. So there's a lot of stuff going on, many small puzzles to figure out. In principle it should be a good book for adventure gamers, then, who enjoy stories told through interlocking puzzles.

My biggest issue is that the author tips his hand too much: he gives away some details in the introduction that makes it pretty easy to work out who the murderer is and more or less how it is done long before the murder even happens, and it just becomes a long slog to wait for the story to catch up. Other things are also hinted a little too heavily (e.g. one character being gay); the most annoying part about that is that the main character doesn't catch on at all, about anything, but keeps coming up with asinine explanations and theories. That refusal to see what's right in front of his eyes while playing detective reminded me of nothing so much as Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans, another "mystery" story with deluded/dimwitted narrator and main character that I found equally unsatisfying.

"Unreliable" narrators who understand much less of what's going on than readers are always a risky literary device. Didn't really work for me this time. Shame.

[Stupot]

Yesterday I finished Malice by Higashino Keigo. Not as good as Journey..., which I mentioned above, but still a very intricate and thoughtful mystery with a great cast of characters and a very very dark ending. It's called Malice for a reason, and if you are sensitive to the subject of bullying, this story will break your heart.

[Ponch]

I spent my holiday reading Hammer and Anvil by James Swallow. It was a fun, light read. I don't normally read most of the stuff from Black Library, but the Sisters of Battle are such an overlooked army that I'll take any fluff I can get.

[Andail]

The last few novels I've read:
Picture of Dorian Gray, by Wilde, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, was great.
All the light we cannot see, by Anthony Doerr. I think this was on Snarky's recommendation, or at least initiative. It wasn't all that good, unfortunately. It was very elegantly written, certainly the kind of writing that wins awards, but ultimately didn't really go into depth on any specific thought or idea.
The Slave (Singer). Very good. I like everything I've ever read by Singer.
Not that kind of girl by Lena Dunham. I'm a bit split here, because Dunham writes really cleverly and funny, and is no doubt very talented, however this book - auto-biographical, by the way - is slightly too unfocused and has long passages that lack both purpose and structure. 

[Snarky]

All the light we cannot see, by Anthony Doerr. I think this was on Snarky's recommendation, or at least initiative.

I doubt it, since I've never heard of it.

[MAGS Host]

[ignore]

[Stupot]

(It finally happened. I accidentally posted under the MAGS account. Whoops)

I never did follow up on Magic, the William Goldman book I mentioned before Christmas. That book was amazing. It's a psychological thriller about a struggling magician, with a lot of issues, who basically spirals into madness with the help of his ventriloquist's dummy. It's hilarious as well as horrific. I genuinely laughed out loud on the train reading this. I loved it so much that I watched the movie, Magic, with a younger Anthony Hopkins in the main role. Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the movie so it's very faithful to the book, but it misses out a lot of details about the main character's childhood.

[RickJ]

I'm currently reading "Murder Never Dies" a true story about crime and corruption in Wheeling WV, nicknamed Little Chicago, in the early and mid 20th century.  It's very interesting and many parts are told from the author's first and second hand experiences. A very easy and enjoyable read.

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Never-Dies-Corruption-Friendly/dp/1882658639

[Stupot]

I'm currently reading "Murder Never Dies" a true story about crime and corruption in Wheeling WV, nicknamed Little Chicago, in the early and mid 20th century.  It's very interesting and many parts are told from the author's first and second hand experiences. A very easy and enjoyable read.

https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Never-Dies-Corruption-Friendly/dp/1882658639

Sounds good. I keep meaning to do more in the way of true crime.

[Mandle]

Sounds good. I keep meaning to do more in the way of true crime.

Then have you read "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote? It's awesome!

[Stupot]

Sounds good. I keep meaning to do more in the way of true crime.

Then have you read "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote? It's awesome!

You know, I have actually read that, but I barely remember it for some reason. Maybe I didn't finish it :-/