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Guest Jake Wifebeater

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This is why I gave up on Pygmy so early last time around, the entire book is written like this, it's really tough going.

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Took a bit of effort but I struggled through to the end of this, as a Palahniuk fan I expected the pay-off would be worth it. Spoiler: it wasn't.

Now on to Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince.

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I'm currently reading an odd book called The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. It's about the value of checklists to get things right and their uses in complex problems and processes. Sounds dry but it's interestingly written, even if some of his examples are just shoehorned in to try and support his central argument!

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Took a bit of effort but I struggled through to the end of this, as a Palahniuk fan I expected the pay-off would be worth it. Spoiler: it wasn't.

Now on to Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince.

 

Surprised how much I enjoyed this. Really really good book.

 

Next up - "Acceptable in The Eighties" by Thom Fell. It was free on the Kindle store so I'm not expecting too much but its got really good reviews so I'll give it a go.

Edited by Lemon Raspberry
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Game of Thrones. Coming up on 600 pages in and it's FINALLY started getting a bit good. I hope Tyrion kills everyone.

 

xx

 

I'm also reading A Game of Thrones (i.e. first book) and about 75% in - it's pretty fucking dull tbh. So it gets better, then? I thought knowing the outcome to all the elaborate conspiracy plots might have had something to do with it; but then so much of the writing is also just plainly terrible. I noted the first book wasn't a best-seller until 15 years or so after it first came out, so maybe the later ones are better. Can't say I'm much motivated to wade through probably 1000s of pages to find out...

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I'm also reading A Game of Thrones (i.e. first book) and about 75% in - it's pretty fucking dull tbh. So it gets better, then? I thought knowing the outcome to all the elaborate conspiracy plots might have had something to do with it; but then so much of the writing is also just plainly terrible. I noted the first book wasn't a best-seller until 15 years or so after it first came out, so maybe the later ones are better. Can't say I'm much motivated to wade through probably 1000s of pages to find out...

 

See, I have no idea how any of it turns out, all I know is that Dragons get involved. I'm trudging towards the end of it and have zero intention of picking up any of the rest of them. I'm also yet to see where all this praise is coming from that GRRM is getting about writing such amazing, strong female characters...?! Maybe this book is just setting a scene where women are typically subordinate property so that it really has an effect when female characters start breaking rank and taking charge, but as it is it's pretty ordinary as far as I can tell.

 

xx

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I read a book of collected essays that an old Uni friend wrote which was pretty interesting and I learned a fair old amount about him that I had no idea of despite being classmates for four years, and currently reading both Aesop's Fables which I haven't read since I was a kid and this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Economic-Naturalist-Economics-Explains-Everything-ebook/dp/B0054ZBXFM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1423744537&sr=1-1&keywords=economic+naturalistwhich is quite interesting and raises some interesting ideas!

I have also started The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith which is quite tough going because of the sentence structure but is also really interesting.

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See, I have no idea how any of it turns out, all I know is that Dragons get involved. I'm trudging towards the end of it and have zero intention of picking up any of the rest of them. I'm also yet to see where all this praise is coming from that GRRM is getting about writing such amazing, strong female characters...?! Maybe this book is just setting a scene where women are typically subordinate property so that it really has an effect when female characters start breaking rank and taking charge, but as it is it's pretty ordinary as far as I can tell.

 

xx

 

The couple of kick-ass female warrior types are yet to appear. With Dranerys (however that's spelt) and (much later) Sansa Stark, they do come into their own later, yeah; but I think by the end of this book Dranerys has gone off at the head of her own army, and it just continues in that vein: her laying righteous waste to cities and occasionally feeling bad about it. You have Catylin (again sp?) as a pretty unlikeable political manipulator and that's about it. In the TV series they made the queen a main character and arch baddie and probably got more out of Arya Stark as well.

 

I think the characters are just painfully one-dimensional in general. What seems like complex - or at least adequate - characterisation on-screen just doesn't cut it on page, I guess. With the female characters, he's trying to write emotively from the POV of 9-14 year old girls, and just does it horribly. With TV one only sees the words and deeds and is spared inner monologues. There's also loads of belaboured NUDGE NUDGE WINK descriptions and matching plot devices (Stark children overhearing baddies discussing conspiracies in detail on two occasions) whereas the TV show just hints at things and leaves the viewer to figure things out. TV wisely dispensed of Tyrion's preposterous ice-cold-killa battlefield heroics also. /rant

 

*

 

Regards Spoonie's reads, I read The Economic Naturalist several years ago and it was really excellent. I might never have read anything about economics or business if it wasn't for that one. I've also got a pdf of The Wealth of Nations waiting to be read. I like to think I know the gist of what Smith was about, but I've read a couple of things arguing the extent to which he's misrepresented, so thought I might finally check out the source.

Edited by scottyboy
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Surprised how much I enjoyed this. Really really good book.

 

Next up - "Acceptable in The Eighties" by Thom Fell. It was free on the Kindle store so I'm not expecting too much but its got really good reviews so I'll give it a go.

 

This was shite yet good, weirdly. 

 

Next up "The Black Echo" by Michael Connelly. Had a couple of sessions of it, its a bit dry so far.

 

I've also got "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" on my Kindle, which I started years ago and never finished.

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Blasted through The Great Gatsby which wasn't too bad, but didn't blow me away. Will need to check out the film. Am currently trying to knock off a load of books that I've started, including Bank 3.0 which is about the future of banking (interesting but a bit dry), 30 Second Politics and Think and Grow Rich

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I've got Gatsby on my kindle to read at some point. 

 

I'm reading the Patrick Rofthuss novella, 'The Slow Regard of Silent Things'. I enjoying it enough, it's a really well written story focusing on one of the characters from his fantasy series The Kingkiller Chronicles (highly recommended, btw). It's different to his first two books, given that it's from the point of view of the character Auri, who is very different to any other character in the series. I don't think you could read it without having read the first two, but for people who have it's worth investigating.

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I'm now reading 'Fall of Giants' by Ken Follett. It's an epic saga based in WW1. I really liked his medieval series (Pillars of the Earth and World Without End) and this is in a similar vein. He writes a ripping yarn and is pretty educational too.

 

I struggled to the end of this and got a bit bored but it was nae bad.

 

Just finished "Galveston" by Nic Pizzolatto (creator of "True Detective" which I've yet to see). It is wonderfully written. A bleak but very human tragedy with a fair bit of action. I'd recommend giving it a go if you like stuff like James Ellroy, Dennis Lehane etc. 

 

On the side I've been reading "Paddle your Own Canoe" by Nick Offerman for some light relief. If you like him you'll like the book. He's a good guy. 

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Blasted through Catcher in the Rye which I really enjoyed. I had no idea what it was about before I started it but it was well put together and a graet read. Currently on The 39 Steps by John Buchan which is stylistically very similar to the early Sherlock Holmes books that I read last year and enjoyable with it.

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Bukowski is tremendous. What did you go for? I read Of mice and Men in a day over the weekend. Started Meditations by Marcus Aurelius but only on the sort of background bit. Still chipping away at a few other bits and pieces too.

Edited by Spoonie
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