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Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 1:13 pm
by SquishPhan
bluebox-away wrote:
SquishPhan wrote:Currently I am reading three things: What if? by Randall Munroe, The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) and Rat Queen Volume 2 by Kurtis J. Wiehe
All the Robert Galbraith books are amazing I love them, J.K. Rowling's writing style is just so much more interesting than regular crime writing imo, the characters are pretty great and the plot twists really surprised me
I really have to continue reading it, because the little I've read so far I liked. Fanfic reading has taken over a bit though, but I am hoping to finish the book this month. Should be doable.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:45 pm
by daichii
I used to read a lot of books, but started getting into youtube so much and then reading smut stuff became a thing idk :?
I think the last "proper" book I read was Unwind by Neal Shusterman (just the first two books). I read a lot of dystopian books after The Hunger Games, but nothing really ruined my life like THG did.

The Count of Monte Cristo and The Little Prince will always be my favorite books tho.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 8:59 pm
by bluebox-away
daichii wrote:I used to read a lot of books, but started getting into youtube so much and then reading smut stuff became a thing idk :?
Same, I used to read up to 50 books a year and now it's April and I've only finished 1 book.. :roll:
daichii wrote:The Count of Monte Cristo and The Little Prince will always be my favorite books tho.
The Little Prince is one of my all time favourites, I read it in French class at school and it really stuck with me. Did you see the animated film they made of it last year? I thought it was pretty great; it made me cry a lot :sobs:

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 9:14 pm
by daphenaxa
bluebox-away wrote:
daichii wrote:The Count of Monte Cristo and The Little Prince will always be my favorite books tho.
The Little Prince is one of my all time favourites, I read it in French class at school and it really stuck with me. Did you see the animated film they made of it last year? I thought it was pretty great; it made me cry a lot :sobs:
that's very interesting. I've always hated The little prince

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 9:24 pm
by SquishPhan
daphenaxa wrote:
bluebox-away wrote:
daichii wrote:The Count of Monte Cristo and The Little Prince will always be my favorite books tho.
The Little Prince is one of my all time favourites, I read it in French class at school and it really stuck with me. Did you see the animated film they made of it last year? I thought it was pretty great; it made me cry a lot :sobs:
that's very interesting. I've always hated The little prince
Me too, read it last year or the year before, but I didn't care for it at all. Got rid of my copy of it.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 10:34 pm
by daichii
bluebox-away wrote:
daichii wrote:I used to read a lot of books, but started getting into youtube so much and then reading smut stuff became a thing idk :?
Same, I used to read up to 50 books a year and now it's April and I've only finished 1 book.. :roll:
daichii wrote:The Count of Monte Cristo and The Little Prince will always be my favorite books tho.
The Little Prince is one of my all time favourites, I read it in French class at school and it really stuck with me. Did you see the animated film they made of it last year? I thought it was pretty great; it made me cry a lot :sobs:
I haven't actually, I watched quite a few versions of The Count that kinda ruined the story, so I was a bit hesitant but I might give it a watch some day. I re-read TLP quite often though as it is very close to my heart (it was the first book I ever read and it was an escape when I was going through some rough times in my childhood). TLP is a lovely read when you are a child, I plan for it to be the first book I read to my kids if I ever become a mother :)

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:33 pm
by albion
IckleMissMayhem wrote:...Then I have Dan's recommendation of "Ready Player One" (auf Deutsch, because I'm an idiot and didn't check the language on iBooks!) ...
oh man,
my friends bought me Ready Player One for my birthday, coincidentally around the time Dan said recc'ed it. I'm having such a hard time reading it and i have nowhere to voice my thoughts at so, here it goes.
I dont know if tumblr-internet have made me really sensitive or really aware of the heaps of sexist bullshit that men are able to produce. if this is a spoiler, im really sorry, but i'm arround 3/4 of the book in, and there are only two woman characters; a) principal character's mother (dead and also, a prostitute who didnt rly care about him) and b) the love interested (who is described as, beautiful but also the prototype of "she likes the same bizarro crap as me and she's almost as intelligent as me, but im better, but she's beautiful and im in love"); i honestly have to cool down every 10 or 15 pages, because it's everything i hate about the so called "nerd culture", and i can see why dan likes it, the character is just another high ego reddit user who fantasize about being a hero on something.

this book is making me miserable and i want someone to read it and tell me if im being insufferable or it's really this bad.
i will finish it though, just for the sake of saying "i read it and it sucked"

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 01, 2016 11:47 pm
by daphenaxa
albion wrote:
IckleMissMayhem wrote:...Then I have Dan's recommendation of "Ready Player One" (auf Deutsch, because I'm an idiot and didn't check the language on iBooks!) ...
oh man,
my friends bought me Ready Player One for my birthday, coincidentally around the time Dan said recc'ed it. I'm having such a hard time reading it and i have nowhere to voice my thoughts at so, here it goes.
I dont know if tumblr-internet have made me really sensitive or really aware of the heaps of sexist bullshit that men are able to produce. if this is a spoiler, im really sorry, but i'm arround 3/4 of the book in, and there are only two woman characters; a) principal character's mother (dead and also, a prostitute who didnt rly care about him) and b) the love interested (who is described as, beautiful but also the prototype of "she likes the same bizarro crap as me and she's almost as intelligent as me, but im better, but she's beautiful and im in love"); i honestly have to cool down every 10 or 15 pages, because it's everything i hate about the so called "nerd culture", and i can see why dan likes it, the character is just another high ego reddit user who fantasize about being a hero on something.

this book is making me miserable and i want someone to read it and tell me if im being insufferable or it's really this bad.
i will finish it though, just for the sake of saying "i read it and it sucked"
fffffff you really made me want to read it now :x

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 12:04 am
by gray_walls
albion wrote:
IckleMissMayhem wrote:...Then I have Dan's recommendation of "Ready Player One" (auf Deutsch, because I'm an idiot and didn't check the language on iBooks!) ...
oh man,
my friends bought me Ready Player One for my birthday, coincidentally around the time Dan said recc'ed it. I'm having such a hard time reading it and i have nowhere to voice my thoughts at so, here it goes.
I dont know if tumblr-internet have made me really sensitive or really aware of the heaps of sexist bullshit that men are able to produce. if this is a spoiler, im really sorry, but i'm arround 3/4 of the book in, and there are only two woman characters; a) principal character's mother (dead and also, a prostitute who didnt rly care about him) and b) the love interested (who is described as, beautiful but also the prototype of "she likes the same bizarro crap as me and she's almost as intelligent as me, but im better, but she's beautiful and im in love"); i honestly have to cool down every 10 or 15 pages, because it's everything i hate about the so called "nerd culture", and i can see why dan likes it, the character is just another high ego reddit user who fantasize about being a hero on something.

this book is making me miserable and i want someone to read it and tell me if im being insufferable or it's really this bad.
i will finish it though, just for the sake of saying "i read it and it sucked"
I started reading it the other day but only read 1/5 so far. What you saying is pretty disheartening tbh. Perhaps i should drop it, i don't really care about eighties culture which is a huge part of this book, and the plot failed to catch my interest :?

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 1:41 am
by albion
gray_walls wrote:
albion wrote:
IckleMissMayhem wrote:...Then I have Dan's recommendation of "Ready Player One" (auf Deutsch, because I'm an idiot and didn't check the language on iBooks!) ...
oh man,
my friends bought me Ready Player One for my birthday, coincidentally around the time Dan said recc'ed it. I'm having such a hard time reading it and i have nowhere to voice my thoughts at so, here it goes.
I dont know if tumblr-internet have made me really sensitive or really aware of the heaps of sexist bullshit that men are able to produce. if this is a spoiler, im really sorry, but i'm arround 3/4 of the book in, and there are only two woman characters; a) principal character's mother (dead and also, a prostitute who didnt rly care about him) and b) the love interested (who is described as, beautiful but also the prototype of "she likes the same bizarro crap as me and she's almost as intelligent as me, but im better, but she's beautiful and im in love"); i honestly have to cool down every 10 or 15 pages, because it's everything i hate about the so called "nerd culture", and i can see why dan likes it, the character is just another high ego reddit user who fantasize about being a hero on something.

this book is making me miserable and i want someone to read it and tell me if im being insufferable or it's really this bad.
i will finish it though, just for the sake of saying "i read it and it sucked"
I started reading it the other day but only read 1/5 so far. What you saying is pretty disheartening tbh. Perhaps i should drop it, i don't really care about eighties culture which is a huge part of this book, and the plot failed to catch my interest :?
ow, im sorry if i discouraged you from reading it. it's certainly my opinion and after all it still has reviews of 4.5 on goodreads and amazon.
but i went on the search to find people who had similar opinons to mine and i found an excellent blog post that describes exactly what i feel, plus the comments add a lot of details that are also quite distasteful.

i feel dan is privileged enough to not realise the string of problematic characters, plots and situations that make u become angrier with every page. i think any person from a minority would feel really uncomfortable reading this, like i did. he certainly shouldn't have recommended it knowing his audience, full of woman into feminism and tired of white cis male heroes who get the girl (character of no depht whatsoever) at the end.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 2:50 am
by greatnessflicker
Delta503 wrote: The Awakening by Kate Chopin - Just amazing. Often treated as an early feminist text, I felt really connected to Edna. One of those books I set down at the end too hollow to really cry. Reminds me of the short story The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
[...]
Stoner by John Williams - I recommend this to everyone, but I've had people actually stop reading have way through, so it's definitely not something that's universally appealing. I came across it after a resurgence in popular interest a couple years back - recounts the unfulfilled life of a stunted English professor through the mid-twentieth century. Completely disillusioning and wonderful :D
I've read both of those for class! I especially loved the Awakening. It introduced me to the concept of ennui. My friend is writing her thesis partly on Stoner (in conjunction with The Professor's House), as well.

I like a whole lot of books/poetry. Realism, transcendentalism, modernism, postmodernism, romanticism, and shakespeare tend to be my favorites. It would be ridiculous to list them all but I want to echo zadie smith and toni morrison (the bluest eye had me sobbing) as previously mentioned. Also really enjoy junot díaz. ALSO, for the short story genre, I LOVE george saunders. he's worth checking out.

Has anybody here completed Ulysses? I gave up maybe six chapters in this summer. I think I need to tackle it in a classroom setting. Loved dubliners tho

currently reading to the lighthouse by woolf. I've only read Mrs. Dalloway before but I love her style so I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

Happy national poetry month (in the united states) by the way!

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 3:54 am
by timtam
bluebox-away wrote:
timtam wrote:
random wrote:It's cool that most of us love Harry Potter. What do you guys think about the Cursed Child? To keep this on topic, they're also planning on releasing the script as a book too.

Mild Spoilers below:
Tbh, I think I am going to love just because I miss the Harry Potter franchise so much. I mean I have always wondered about what everyone would be up to when they're all grown up. I've read the book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and I am curious about how this is going to translate into a movie. Unpopular opinion: I don't mind the word No-Maj and I really like all the new lore about other magical schools. :?
I'm excited but I'm also not excited? I love JK and all but I do think she has made some questionable comments post HP that make me worry about it. I'm not sure how I feel about things like FBAWTFT and the Cursed Child being considered canon when they aren't accessible to everyone (particularly Cursed Child) or not even fully written by her. I also don't want to ruin the absolute joy and wonder I have for HP. I'll probably watch/read both of them and enjoy it and I'm curious as to where the story will go but I'm so very wary of the whole thing.
I'm not sure how I feel about it all but I have tickets to see Cursed Child (after 5 hours of painful getting through that terrible website) because I want to experience it even if I don't love it? I'm really excited about FBAWTFT though because Eddie Redmayne is fab and imo 20s magical New York sounds amazing. I'm not a big fan of No-Maj though but then Muggle seemed pretty weird when HP started out..
SquishPhan wrote:Currently I am reading three things: What if? by Randall Munroe, The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) and Rat Queen Volume 2 by Kurtis J. Wiehe
All the Robert Galbraith books are amazing I love them, J.K. Rowling's writing style is just so much more interesting than regular crime writing imo, the characters are pretty great and the plot twists really surprised me
Let me know how the Cursed Child is! I'd definitely want to go and see it if I had the opportunity! I think that's why I'm don't really into it. It's a very exclusive way of presenting new HP material not everyone lives near London and not everyone can afford to go see if they do. I'm glad they are releasing the script so I can still be a part of it but it doesn't feel the same. I love Eddie Redmayne too! I'm more into the idea of FBAWTFT because if I don't love it it's okay because it doesn't involve the actual characters. It looks pretty good though!
daichii wrote:I used to read a lot of books, but started getting into youtube so much and then reading smut stuff became a thing idk :?
I think the last "proper" book I read was Unwind by Neal Shusterman (just the first two books). I read a lot of dystopian books after The Hunger Games, but nothing really ruined my life like THG did.

The Count of Monte Cristo and The Little Prince will always be my favorite books tho.
I think I've read unwind! Is that there they are all like organ donors and then at some point they end up hiding in an aeroplane graveyard?

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 4:41 am
by bluebox-away
timtam wrote:Let me know how the Cursed Child is! I'd definitely want to go and see it if I had the opportunity! I think that's why I'm don't really into it. It's a very exclusive way of presenting new HP material not everyone lives near London and not everyone can afford to go see if they do. I'm glad they are releasing the script so I can still be a part of it but it doesn't feel the same. I love Eddie Redmayne too! I'm more into the idea of FBAWTFT because if I don't love it it's okay because it doesn't involve the actual characters. It looks pretty good though!
I'm not seeing it till November but I'll get back to you! I'm pretty excited about the script because it means more people have access to the story, but I totally agree that a play is a weird and exclusive thing to decide to do. Also very disappointed to have just heard the release of FBAWTFT has been pushed back to next summer because J.K was unhappy with one of the actors/characters or something :roll: Edit: apparently this was an April Fool, not cool mugglenet :cry:

To make this less off topic, I binge-read my way through a lot of YA series, including The Moral Instruments (before I knew about the plagiarism drama, not buying her stuff anymore), Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent series. Has anyone seen the Allegiant movie? From the trailer it looks to be nothing like the book whatsoever, which is really disappointing. I'm still bitter about the things the Harry Potter movies did wrong.. In high school I read a lot of classics but lately I barely have the energy to read let alone read something that takes effort and concentration!

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 6:08 am
by angrymob
bluebox-away wrote:
daichii wrote:The Count of Monte Cristo and The Little Prince will always be my favorite books tho.
The Little Prince is one of my all time favourites, I read it in French class at school and it really stuck with me. Did you see the animated film they made of it last year? I thought it was pretty great; it made me cry a lot :sobs:
I had it for required reading too, but I ended up hating it for that. :? I just struggled with a few of the morals being a bit of a stretch (I've yet to find a young child that hasn't given me hat as an answer to the first one, unless you prod them a bit further). I thought the animated version was very good, but have you seen the live action version with Gene Wilder? It was terrifying and hilarious at the same time.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 11:54 am
by gray_walls
albion wrote:
gray_walls wrote:
albion wrote:
IckleMissMayhem wrote:...Then I have Dan's recommendation of "Ready Player One" (auf Deutsch, because I'm an idiot and didn't check the language on iBooks!) ...
oh man,
my friends bought me Ready Player One for my birthday, coincidentally around the time Dan said recc'ed it. I'm having such a hard time reading it and i have nowhere to voice my thoughts at so, here it goes.
I dont know if tumblr-internet have made me really sensitive or really aware of the heaps of sexist bullshit that men are able to produce. if this is a spoiler, im really sorry, but i'm arround 3/4 of the book in, and there are only two woman characters; a) principal character's mother (dead and also, a prostitute who didnt rly care about him) and b) the love interested (who is described as, beautiful but also the prototype of "she likes the same bizarro crap as me and she's almost as intelligent as me, but im better, but she's beautiful and im in love"); i honestly have to cool down every 10 or 15 pages, because it's everything i hate about the so called "nerd culture", and i can see why dan likes it, the character is just another high ego reddit user who fantasize about being a hero on something.

this book is making me miserable and i want someone to read it and tell me if im being insufferable or it's really this bad.
i will finish it though, just for the sake of saying "i read it and it sucked"
I started reading it the other day but only read 1/5 so far. What you saying is pretty disheartening tbh. Perhaps i should drop it, i don't really care about eighties culture which is a huge part of this book, and the plot failed to catch my interest :?
ow, im sorry if i discouraged you from reading it. it's certainly my opinion and after all it still has reviews of 4.5 on goodreads and amazon.
but i went on the search to find people who had similar opinons to mine and i found an excellent blog post that describes exactly what i feel, plus the comments add a lot of details that are also quite distasteful.

i feel dan is privileged enough to not realise the string of problematic characters, plots and situations that make u become angrier with every page. i think any person from a minority would feel really uncomfortable reading this, like i did. he certainly shouldn't have recommended it knowing his audience, full of woman into feminism and tired of white cis male heroes who get the girl (character of no depht whatsoever) at the end.
I believe, you saved me some time. I intended this book to be an easy read to balance somewhat darker stuff i've been reading, but looks like it has nothing good to offer to me, as i am not a serious gamer and mostly unfamiliar with eighties pop-culture.

I thought about something similar when d&p (and a lot of people irl) said that they loved sherlock christmas special and I (female and queer) felt like there were so much wrong with this episode. But i can understand how you can simply not notice anything wrong if you aren't touched by it, if it doesn't harm you personally. I might be guilty of it myself, being privileged in many aspects too. Does anything of it makes sense? i can't english rn

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 1:20 pm
by Delta503
greatnessflicker wrote:Has anybody here completed Ulysses? I gave up maybe six chapters in this summer. I think I need to tackle it in a classroom setting. Loved dubliners tho

currently reading to the lighthouse by woolf. I've only read Mrs. Dalloway before but I love her style so I'm sure I'll enjoy it.
Yes, for uni though. Definitely the toughest read I've ever had - but pretty fulfilling in the end, just from being able to say you've defeated it. The advice I got from ppl was to read it slowly bit by bit, but in the end I just had to blitz it and accept that a hell of a lot made zero sense. I managed Portrait of an artist out of a education setting, but Ulysses is just......... yea (the pissing scene makes it worthwhile tho )

I'm the reverse on the Woolf front! Currently reading Mrs Dalloway, after liking her other stuff including To The Lighthouse. Orlando remains my fav tho. I'll definitely check out George Saunders - always looking to find more excellent short story writers cheers.

Really interesting hearing everyone's thoughts on Ready Player One! I've read my fair share of dystopian YA (Divergent, HG, Mazerunner etc.), and I like to read books before films come out so I thought I'd give it go. I'll definitely pick it up from a library instead of purchasing off the back of what everyone's said. Sometimes it's dangerous to form hard opinions on books mid way through, but if you feel alienated by it then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ why suffer through it? It seems cool conceptually (even though i'm not a gamer), but too many ya dystopias rely too heavily on concept and the characters fall completely by the wayside as authors get lazy (that's the reason I feel that HG > Mazerunner/Divergent). If I end up reading it I'll dump an opinion in here maybe. :)
gray_walls wrote:I thought about something similar when d&p (and a lot of people irl) said that they loved sherlock christmas special and I (female and queer) felt like there were so much wrong with this episode. But i can understand how you can simply not notice anything wrong if you aren't touched by it, if it doesn't harm you personally. I might be guilty of it myself, being privileged in many aspects too. Does anything of it makes sense? i can't english rn
I know this is technically TV, but same ugh. After explaining to a friend why why I didn't particularly enjoy it, they responded "why do you have to over analyse everything why can't you just enjoy it" lmao. I was just so turned off by the whole thing after the 'twist', plus the treatment of Molly was so frustrating. Sherlock seems to over extend itself every time idk.
bluebox-away wrote:
timtam wrote:Let me know how the Cursed Child is! I'd definitely want to go and see it if I had the opportunity! I think that's why I'm don't really into it. It's a very exclusive way of presenting new HP material not everyone lives near London and not everyone can afford to go see if they do. I'm glad they are releasing the script so I can still be a part of it but it doesn't feel the same. I love Eddie Redmayne too! I'm more into the idea of FBAWTFT because if I don't love it it's okay because it doesn't involve the actual characters. It looks pretty good though!
I'm not seeing it till November but I'll get back to you! I'm pretty excited about the script because it means more people have access to the story, but I totally agree that a play is a weird and exclusive thing to decide to do. Also very disappointed to have just heard the release of FBAWTFT has been pushed back to next summer because J.K was unhappy with one of the actors/characters or something :roll: Edit: apparently this was an April Fool, not cool mugglenet :cry:
I feel as though a play's cool, as long as when it comes out it actually works well in a theatre context and the story couldn't have just as easily been told in a novel/short story. I really hope they do a live screening of the play in cinemas at some point, like the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre and Royal Opera House sometimes do. Plays are supposed to be performed, and these screenings are such a great way to broaden access. (in the news recently some high profile stage actor was complaining about live screenings and my reaction was just :roll: ). I'm also glad the script's being released, but a screening would be one better!

I'll go and see FBAWTFT because as you say timtam, it's an extension of the universe not the original story so it doesn't matter as much if it's shit. I reckon it'll be cool though, I feel as though at some points in the HP films they got so caught up in the big story they forgot about the little magical touches that J.K. always included in the book. I really hope they emphasise that in FBAWTFT.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 3:21 pm
by ironic
daphenaxa wrote: Do you guys read poetry? Who are your favourite poets? Mine are French poets Rimbaud and Baudelaire.
I like Rimbaud and Baudelaire, too, but my favourite poets would probably be Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg.
I read quite a lot of poetry although mostly Polish authors.
greatnessflicker wrote: Has anybody here completed Ulysses? I gave up maybe six chapters in this summer. I think I need to tackle it in a classroom setting. Loved dubliners tho
I did, a few years ago. It took me solid six months but I kind of liked it. I even own an English version (which is not my first language) but it's still a bit intimidating. I hope to read it in the future, though.
I promise I'm not pretentious. :D

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 6:16 pm
by fancy_nancy
ironic wrote:
daphenaxa wrote: Do you guys read poetry? Who are your favourite poets? Mine are French poets Rimbaud and Baudelaire.
I like Rimbaud and Baudelaire, too, but my favourite poets would probably be Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg.
I read quite a lot of poetry although mostly Polish authors.

Sometimes i have a really hard time trying to understand poetry but i still like to read it, is that weird?
anyways, one of my favorite poems ever is by Pablo Neruda, specifically the 15th poem in his "Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada", and if we're talking classics then Hombres necios que acusáis a la mujer sin razón by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is the best feminist poem ever written (both of those i've only read in spanish so i'm not sure how good translations are but they're gr8 poems)

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Sat Apr 02, 2016 8:45 pm
by PolarFox
albion wrote:
gray_walls wrote:
albion wrote:
IckleMissMayhem wrote:...Then I have Dan's recommendation of "Ready Player One" (auf Deutsch, because I'm an idiot and didn't check the language on iBooks!) ...
oh man,
my friends bought me Ready Player One for my birthday, coincidentally around the time Dan said recc'ed it. I'm having such a hard time reading it and i have nowhere to voice my thoughts at so, here it goes.
I dont know if tumblr-internet have made me really sensitive or really aware of the heaps of sexist bullshit that men are able to produce. if this is a spoiler, im really sorry, but i'm arround 3/4 of the book in, and there are only two woman characters; a) principal character's mother (dead and also, a prostitute who didnt rly care about him) and b) the love interested (who is described as, beautiful but also the prototype of "she likes the same bizarro crap as me and she's almost as intelligent as me, but im better, but she's beautiful and im in love"); i honestly have to cool down every 10 or 15 pages, because it's everything i hate about the so called "nerd culture", and i can see why dan likes it, the character is just another high ego reddit user who fantasize about being a hero on something.

this book is making me miserable and i want someone to read it and tell me if im being insufferable or it's really this bad.
i will finish it though, just for the sake of saying "i read it and it sucked"
I started reading it the other day but only read 1/5 so far. What you saying is pretty disheartening tbh. Perhaps i should drop it, i don't really care about eighties culture which is a huge part of this book, and the plot failed to catch my interest :?
ow, im sorry if i discouraged you from reading it. it's certainly my opinion and after all it still has reviews of 4.5 on goodreads and amazon.
but i went on the search to find people who had similar opinons to mine and i found an excellent blog post that describes exactly what i feel, plus the comments add a lot of details that are also quite distasteful.

i feel dan is privileged enough to not realise the string of problematic characters, plots and situations that make u become angrier with every page. i think any person from a minority would feel really uncomfortable reading this, like i did. he certainly shouldn't have recommended it knowing his audience, full of woman into feminism and tired of white cis male heroes who get the girl (character of no depht whatsoever) at the end.
Wow... Now this is really interesting, because I finished the book yesterday and I loved it. As a queer woman I genuinely liked the story of the book. I'll put the rest of it under spoiler, since I am going to get spoilery with that. And I mean even spoilers from ending and stuff.
It is true, that I was rooting for the Japanese "brothers" to win and was lowkey sad when Daito died. Now I see the problem with the amount of white cis guys, maybe that was even the thing that made me jump from excitement and happines when Aech's true identity was revealed and I thought it was amazing how the book included queer woman of colour and made me love the character even more and I though that her hiding behind white male persona was good nudge to the society. (soz if I'm wording all of this wrong I'm not good at explaining what I mean exactly as I think it) So over all I liked the book, enjoyed some of the pop culture references... I think it did a good job at explaining people and how bad they can be. I mean, the rewiev has really good points, but I somehow felt the book was written that way to point at those things? Because they are noticable? Idk tbh.
Over all, I'm probably either too used to not being included or another priviledged white european closeted girl because I liked the book and I'm surprised how much hate it's getting.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2016 11:39 am
by timtam
Delta503 wrote:
bluebox-away wrote:
timtam wrote:Let me know how the Cursed Child is! I'd definitely want to go and see it if I had the opportunity! I think that's why I'm don't really into it. It's a very exclusive way of presenting new HP material not everyone lives near London and not everyone can afford to go see if they do. I'm glad they are releasing the script so I can still be a part of it but it doesn't feel the same. I love Eddie Redmayne too! I'm more into the idea of FBAWTFT because if I don't love it it's okay because it doesn't involve the actual characters. It looks pretty good though!
I'm not seeing it till November but I'll get back to you! I'm pretty excited about the script because it means more people have access to the story, but I totally agree that a play is a weird and exclusive thing to decide to do. Also very disappointed to have just heard the release of FBAWTFT has been pushed back to next summer because J.K was unhappy with one of the actors/characters or something :roll: Edit: apparently this was an April Fool, not cool mugglenet :cry:
I feel as though a play's cool, as long as when it comes out it actually works well in a theatre context and the story couldn't have just as easily been told in a novel/short story. I really hope they do a live screening of the play in cinemas at some point, like the Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre and Royal Opera House sometimes do. Plays are supposed to be performed, and these screenings are such a great way to broaden access. (in the news recently some high profile stage actor was complaining about live screenings and my reaction was just :roll: ). I'm also glad the script's being released, but a screening would be one better!

I'll go and see FBAWTFT because as you say timtam, it's an extension of the universe not the original story so it doesn't matter as much if it's shit. I reckon it'll be cool though, I feel as though at some points in the HP films they got so caught up in the big story they forgot about the little magical touches that J.K. always included in the book. I really hope they emphasise that in FBAWTFT.

I hope they do a live screening too! I don't know why they wouldn't there would be a huge demand for it! Oh I totally agree about the films missing the magical touches. I think FBAWTFT looks really magical (I literally couldn't think of a better word for it :lol: ) so I hope its good!

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 4:26 pm
by deerly
I really enjoy sci fi that focuses on philosophy, questions what humanity is, etc. Harlan Ellison (sometimes his stuff is creepier than any purposefully creepy stories, I had nightmares after reading I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, but it was amazing so worth it), Philip Dick (esp Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Asimov, his short stories are unforgettable, his writing is very 'easy' but the meaning is #deep (although his somehow homoerotic light futuristic detective novels are good too, just different, if you want some Jeeves and Wooster cosmoopera entertaining action then this series is for you. Also he's got a lot of non-fiction books, they're not hard to understand and can be v interesting) and Stanisław Lem.
I like authobiographies, Steven Fry's has literally saved my life when I was 15, Patti Smith's "Just Kids" is very beautiful and made me cry a lot and also interesting if you're into 60s-70s music, Felix Yusupov's memoirs and Stephen Tennant's diary are cool if you're into 1910-1920s and are a good way to see queer people's life how it was back then. And Morrissey.
Salinger's short stories are SO good, The Catcher In the Rye is a but overrated imo.
Also Dostoevsky, Christopher Isherwood (idk, everything he wrote is just perfect, CABARET is based on his diary/novel), Virginia Woolf, Camus, Djuna Barns, Daphne du Maurier's short stories, Wilde (plays esp), Ian McEwan, P. G. Wodehouse, Sue Townsend (her humour is similar to Wodehouse's, she was great), Truman Capote.
The younger authors that I like are Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles is amazing, it's epic, it's like poetry and will make you cry. Doesn't disrespect The Iliad at all, compliments it v nicely) and Donna Tartt. Tartt's a bit pretentious but very self-aware (a good combination), writes beautifully, has a good sense of humour, her characters are BREATHING AND LIVING and her storylines are so captivating you won't be able to put down her books until you've finished. I recommend "The Secret History", it's my fav book I've read in 2015.

My fav poets are Rimbaud, Richard Brautigan, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, Brodsky, Sylvia Plath, Richard Siken, Keats, Allen Ginsberg.

Wow what a long post sorry guys :?

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Thu Apr 07, 2016 7:24 pm
by Stakhanov
deerly wrote:I really enjoy sci fi that focuses on philosophy, questions what humanity is, etc.
'Ello there, you just put into words what i what is was going to try to say after struggling for words for a whole paragraph ;)

It's nice to read all of your opinions and recommendations. Makes me think about how i should really read more and probably spend less time posting on this forum. Oh well

When I read I mostly read sci fi, adventure and non fiction. I loved The Foundation series by Asimov. Everything Asimov, really.
I remember being so engaged with Frank Herbert's Dune series I had the taste of sand in my mouth and wanted to walk through the Sahara desert in search of water.
Currently reading the Xelee sequence by Stephan Baxter, be it at a snails pace. It's concept heavy, but I'm not sure yet i'm really going to read all 14 books (i probably will
Anyone who has read "Consider Phlebas" (culture series) by Ian M. Banks? Was thinking of picking it up through an online bookstore since no Dutch translation is available'


I love adventure too. Lord of The Rings was my gateway drug as a child. As a teen I ate up all of the Dutch YA authors who wrote historical fiction books who usually had some some light adventure themes. I was already in uni when Harry Potter got big so i just read the books, without the friend sleepovers and pyjama parties at every new release :(
More recently I really enjoyed the Riftwar Saga by Feist. I'm not quite sure how to proceed, i want to start a new series, but i want books with an epic scope and spawning thousands of pages. I hate the feeling you get when a good book ends.
I got to the third book of game of thrones but then just stopped when the more interesting storylines took a backseat. Then I started to watch the tv series and that sort of spoiled my motivation to pick up where i left in the books :D

As for non fiction, the last ones I read are David s. Landes "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor" and "The World Since 1945: A History of International Relations" (Wayne C. McWilliams, Harry Piotrowski). That last one is pretty dry and not for the faint of heart.
I was looking at Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. Anyone read it? Seems like an interesting microhistory and never really tried that genre.
Also, i have a fetish for Historical atlases.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 1:49 am
by icklebrina
Stakhanov wrote: I was looking at Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky. Anyone read it? Seems like an interesting microhistory and never really tried that genre.
Also, i have a fetish for Historical atlases.
I haven't, but I did have it recommended to me by a friend a few months ago, so I'd say try it out!

Also, re: atlases. Same.

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Fri Apr 08, 2016 1:29 pm
by spaceminimalist
i have about a hundred pages left of 'ready player one' but so far i quite liked it! it's true though that it has literally one female character that is kind of important, even though she is just the love interest of the straight white male protagonist and she is reduced to her looks a lot. don't even get me started on her "flaw" that makes her "if anything even more beautiful" in the protags eyes. ugh :/
(wasn't it phil who said he was currently reading the book though???)

other than that i'm still re-reading the harry potter books for the third time and i've been on book seven for over two months now oops.
one of my fav book series is the chaos walking trilogy by patrick ness!!! you should really check it out, it has a male lead, but aside from that a lot of strong female characters, especially in the two last books, and the protag has two dads and no one ever questions it (and nobody gets sexualized or reduced to their looks so there is that)

i loved the hunger games books but i really really disliked the maze runner trilogy, thomas was such a boring main character and the love triangle just really annoying and the plot didn't seem to make much sense unfortunately

also i started reading some john green books, even though most of them are really cheesy haha

Re: Book Thread

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 12:34 pm
by timtam
Reviving this thread because I have book feels.

I just finished a book called The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater and it's the last in the series and it just killed me. I have the worst book hangover.