Re: Books you have read and wish to recommend, or not...

tanita_mors 4/17/2012, 7:17 am

I don't like Dan Brown.

You see, I read all his books except The Last Symbol - I will though, when I find the time. And the thing is, each novel I read, I like better then the previous. I read DaVinci's Code first, but my favorite one is Point of Deception - government conspiracy about the existence of alien life forms found on Earth and Angels and Demons - the whole Illuminati thing. Also, Dan Brown has one mayor flaw - he is 100 % predictable about his stories villain. In all the books I read, it's always the helpfully older mentor/confidant/boss who is the mastermind behind the whole thing.

If anyone here likes gory thrillers - read Chelsea Cain's Gretchen Lowell novels - there are currently 4 of them and the fifth is out in the summer. Gretchen Lowell is a female serial killer who murdered hundreds of people. This cop was trying to catch her, but she caught him and tortured him for 10 days until she killed him. But for some reason, she revived him and turned herself in. And now, while she is in prison their sick and twisted cat and mouse game begins.

Delight 4/17/2012, 9:32 am

Glorfindel wrote:
Another favorite author, who combines fantasy and science fiction is Anne McCaffrey (and her son Todd). She created the Dragons of Pern books, and the 'Ship' books.

I've read Anne McCaffrey too! My personal favourite is her 'The Tower and the Hive' series, about this family line of women gifted with powerful telepathy and telekinesis-- The Rowan, Damia, Damia's Children etc.

tanita_mors wrote:
If anyone here likes gory thrillers - read Chelsea Cain's Gretchen Lowell novels - there are currently 4 of them and the fifth is out in the summer. Gretchen Lowell is a female serial killer who murdered hundreds of people. This cop was trying to catch her, but she caught him and tortured him for 10 days until she killed him. But for some reason, she revived him and turned herself in. And now, while she is in prison their sick and twisted cat and mouse game begins.

The protagonist sounds... intriguing. So I gather there's some sort of twisted romance going on between this serial killer and this cop (ala Silence of the Lambs)? I'll keep an eye out for this author the next time I visit a library.

I've read a few Jeff Lindsay's 'Dexter' books myself (about a serial killer of serial killers), but I thought the later novels lost some of their impact when the author tried to introduce supernatural themes into the stories.

Shinra17 4/17/2012, 10:55 am

fantastica wrote:@Shinra17 - either he's 17 yrs old, or born in 1917... or owns 17 sheep, or lives on the 17th floor, or has 17 toes.

or 17 is his favorite number... Laughing

paulopf wrote:Hm. Weird. I wrote a huge reply and it vanished. I hope it doesn't end in another part of the forum. Anyway! Here I go again. Okay. I was going to reply first to other comments, but then I saw Dostoievsky's name. Alioscha Karamazov is one of my idols! That said, I'm far from having read all of Dostoievsky's work, but my favorites are Brothers Karamazov, The Adolescent, Crime and Punishment and The Idiot. From him, I've also read Demons, Humiliated and Offended, Poor Folk, A Little Hero, The Gambler and some short stories. I have to admit that I haven't read Balzac or Stendhal and after you made me google it, I hadn't even heard about Romain Gary. Oh! When I think of loyalty and love beyond death, I remember that phrase Iliuscha's dad, from Brother's Karamazov kept quoting after his son died: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem..." Hey! That's what I was referring to about poetry fitting the most different situations, depending on the context. Wow. This made me really excited!

I've read the Karamazov brothers long time ago but I remember being obsessed with Aliocha for a long time after I finished it.

Delight wrote:Whoa, I feel like a total Philistine here, because none of those names ring a bell to me

I never took a class of literature in my life so...

Probably, that's why. They are classical authors, here in france, they are part of the language class program in middle and high school and honestly, they are rather a pain in the ass and make most schoolers hate literature more than anything else lol (also WTH to make for people too young to understand completely the work of these authors an obligation to read them). Personally, I started my reading-mania later and I re-discovered all these authors.

tanita_mors wrote:I find Dostoyevsky completly overbaring and depresing. I have never felt more depresed then after reading him, and some Serbian authors like Crnjanski's "Migrations" - the most boring novel I have ever read. I had to read Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov as our obligatory reading and together with Anna Karenina - NEVER AGAIN. I'm with this Jane Austin love - Pride and Prejudice is probably my favorite "romance" novel ever.

The first book I've read in english, I remember I like it a lot, it felt like something light compared to what I used to read. And Anna Karenina wub

tanita_mors 4/17/2012, 11:18 am

Delight wrote:

I've read a few Jeff Lindsay's 'Dexter' books myself (about a serial killer of serial killers), but I thought the later novels lost some of their impact when the author tried to introduce supernatural themes into the stories.

With Dexter I prefer the tv show - WHOLE LOT MORE. I hate when something twisted but normal goes supernatural. He ruined his whole premise IMO with that.

I know this is the book tread, but if there are any Dexter tv show fans here who are up to date with the show, I'd love to talk about it in the tv tread. Or any other show, if I have watched it or heard about it.

Emile 4/17/2012, 11:39 am

^I used to watch Dexter, but I stopped when

Spoiler:

tanita_mors 4/17/2012, 1:01 pm

Why ???? That was IMO the single best ending of any tv show season I have ever seen. Although the show did go down after that. It's only a shadow of season 2 (the best season IMO).

Sani 4/17/2012, 1:09 pm

tanita_mors wrote:
Delight wrote:

I've read a few Jeff Lindsay's 'Dexter' books myself (about a serial killer of serial killers), but I thought the later novels lost some of their impact when the author tried to introduce supernatural themes into the stories.
With Dexter I prefer the tv show - WHOLE LOT MORE. I hate when something twisted but normal goes supernatural. He ruined his whole premise IMO with that.

I've thought about reading the books because i love the tv show, but i think i'm gonna pass if it goes supernatural.

tanita_mors wrote:Why ???? That was IMO the single best ending of any tv show season I have ever seen. Although the show did go down after that. It's only a shadow of season 2 (the best season IMO).

I agree, the last 2 seasons have been little bit disappointing.

Emile 4/17/2012, 1:39 pm

tanita_mors wrote:Why ???? That was IMO the single best ending of any tv show season I have ever seen. Although the show did go down after that. It's only a shadow of season 2 (the best season IMO).

Fhh, no, I didn't find it the best ending at all.

Spoiler:

tanita_mors 4/17/2012, 3:07 pm

Emile wrote:
tanita_mors wrote:Why ???? That was IMO the single best ending of any tv show season I have ever seen. Although the show did go down after that. It's only a shadow of season 2 (the best season IMO).
Fhh, no, I didn't find it the best ending at all.
Spoiler:

I'll answer in the TV tread.

paulopf 4/19/2012, 11:06 pm

I'd like to talk briefly about a book I read relatively recently, that quickly became one of my favorites. It's called "Giovanni's Room", from James Baldwin. Basically, the book is about a gay man who's forced to betray love and his own identity due to society's pressure. It's beautiful and brutal. Leaves the reader full of despair and although it's from 1956, serves as a painful reminder of what, even today, tons of homosexuals still deal with, in larger or shorter doses. Here, I'll leave a few quotes from the book that still ring in my ears:

"I had started to think about Giovanni dying. There, where Giovanni had been, nothing would be again. Ever." (David)

"Love him. Love him and allow him to love you. Do you really think there's a more important matter in this world? And how long, in the best of cases, can it last anyway, since both of you are men and your entire future still lays uncertain in front of you? Barely five minutes, I can assure you, and most of it in the darkness." (Jacques)

"Look at all the garbage in this city. Have you seen all the garbage in this city? Where is it taken to? I don't know where it is taken, but it could very well be to my room." (Giovanni)

"...a trivial possibility that rumbles incessantly, like the possibility of madness..." (David)

"Maybe, just with his own strength, he was trying to force those claustrophobic walls to retreat, without causing them to crumble." (David)

"Awaiting, like on our deathbed, the miracle that we do not dare to not believe in, the one which will never occur." (David)

And the last one, which is also my favorite:

"I was the only person on that cold and green land, who was concerned about him, who knew his language and his silences, who knew his arms and was not carrying a knife." (David)

If something sounds weird, please forgive me. I read the book in Spanish and had to translate the quotes.

Emile 4/20/2012, 6:33 am

paulopf wrote:"Maybe, just with his own strength, he was trying to force those claustrophobic walls to retreat, without causing them to crumble." (David)

"I was the only person on that cold and green land, who was concerned about him, who knew his language and his silences, who knew his arms and was not carrying a knife." (David)

I like these two particularly. I didn't read the book and never heard of it, but these quotes appear to apply to so many contexts.

Shinra17 4/20/2012, 9:15 am

^ IA

paulopf wrote:I'd like to talk briefly about a book I read relatively recently, that quickly became one of my favorites. It's called "Giovanni's Room", from James Baldwin. Basically, the book is about a gay man who's forced to betray love and his own identity due to society's pressure. It's beautiful and brutal.

Instintively, I'm more interested in the loved one who has been betrayed... (well, if there was one).

paulopf 4/20/2012, 3:13 pm

^Oh, yes. Definitely, after reading the book, I felt resentful towards David and felt so horribly bad for Giovanni. Giovanni is the hero of the story, while David, though he ends up apparently in a better situation, is... not the villain, but very much the coward.

paulopf 4/24/2012, 3:52 pm

Today I read something called "Manifest", from Pedro Lemebel. He's a Chilean author. He's gay and likes to wear gender-bending outfits for his performances. I'm gonna paste here a fragment from the Manifest. As usual, forgive me if the translation is not spot on:

“…my manliness was to bite the mockery,
swallow rage to avoid killing them all.
My manliness is to accept myself as different.
Being a coward is harder.
I do not present the other cheek,
I present my ass, comrades.”

paulopf 4/30/2012, 6:36 pm

I'm stuck in the Sherlock Holmes saga since a couple of months ago. I never read them when I was a kid. Here, a couple of quotes I really liked:

...Where there is no imagination, there is no horror

And:

It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent.

(Sherlock talking about the human brain)

Emile 5/6/2012, 4:25 pm

I've just finished to read the 'Lord of the Flies', that was on my desk for quite a long time at gathering dust because I always thought it was about a dirty man (...I made a mental movie because I didn't feel like reading the plot...) and, damn it, it's seriously a terrible book.

I devoured it, but when there were only a few pages left from the end I wanted to stop it, close it and throw it somewhere really far because I didn't want the end to be like what I was imagining. But, I finished it and it left me anxiety.
It's really a pessimistic and cinic vision of the human race, that scared me and made me feel a growing discomfort page after page until the strange end, especially when I remembered that the protagonists of this are only a group of children.

I think it's an incredible reading. Not one of those books you like or don't like: you read it and think.

paulopf 5/6/2012, 9:00 pm

Emile wrote:I've just finished to read the 'Lord of the Flies', that was on my desk for quite a long time at gathering dust because I always thought it was about a dirty man (...I made a mental movie because I didn't feel like reading the plot...) and, damn it, it's seriously a terrible book.

I devoured it, but when there were only a few pages left from the end I wanted to stop it, close it and throw it somewhere really far because I didn't want the end to be like what I was imagining. But, I finished it and it left me anxiety.
It's really a pessimistic and cinic vision of the human race, that scared me and made me feel a growing discomfort page after page until the strange end, especially when I remembered that the protagonists of this are only a group of children.

I think it's an incredible reading. Not one of those books you like or don't like: you read it and think.

Oh! Lord of the Flies! To me, like you said, is one of those books that you might love, but still repulses you. I read it for school, when I was very young, like thirteen or so, and I remember almost all my classmates said that it was super cool, though reacted strongly about it. A girl told us she couldn't really sleep properly for awhile, cause she kept crying.

I don't know why, but one of the details that impressed me the most about the book was the fact that the younger kids got simply used to live with diarrhea. To me, that meant that those kids, who, if I'm remembering correctly, were six or seven years old, were going to grow up as another species or a "lesser" sort of human beings. More basic and with numbed sensibility. Oh! The Samneric character too was fascinating.

Jules Verne wrote a similar story, which is called "Deux Ans De Vacances", but the vision of a similar situation (stranded kids, no adults who represent civilization around to look after them) was actually on the end of the positive spectrum, cause the kids, despite some differences they had to overcome at first, in the end learned to cooperate so they could subjugate the hostile nature.

Emile 5/7/2012, 5:40 am

paulopf wrote:Oh! Lord of the Flies! To me, like you said, is one of those books that you might love, but still repulses you. I read it for school, when I was very young, like thirteen or so, and I remember almost all my classmates said that it was super cool, though reacted strongly about it. A girl told us she couldn't really sleep properly for awhile, cause she kept crying.

I don't know why, but one of the details that impressed me the most about the book was the fact that the younger kids got simply used to live with diarrhea. To me, that meant that those kids, who, if I'm remembering correctly, were six or seven years old, were going to grow up as another species or a "lesser" sort of human beings. More basic and was a number sensibility. Oh! The Samneric character too was fascinating.

Jules Verne wrote a similar story, which is called "Deux Ans De Vacances", but the vision of a similar situation (stranded kids, no adults who represent civilization around to look after them) was actually on the end of the positive spectrum, cause the kids, despite some differences they had to overcome at first, in the end learned to cooperate so they could subjugate the hostile nature.

I wish I could could have read this in school, highschool better, it could have raised a lot of interesting discussions!

But, thirteen years old?! Of course she was crying. I was crying!
Especially in that scene when -SPOILER- that boy Simone (...Simon in the original language?) in an hallucinatory crisis has the vision about the Lord of the Flies. That scene was brilliant, but don't know why I was crying like a baby.
I think that when he comes back from the mountain (he wanted to discover if the Beast was really there) and the other children were doing their awful rite that ended like it ended and that nobody want to talk about, it's like the highlight of the book, in all the eccellent and terrible ways. That, and the scene at the end.

About the diarrhea, what you said it's interesting! But it didn't impress me that much, haha. I only thought they used it, together with other things, to mark the time of their day in need of normality.
I mean, they surely return to their primordial nature and istincts, and on the island they are free from the chains of conventional and they show their background of animality. Surely they were used to grow in a society that give them, and now they need (they are forced to change diet and, since some of them could only reach some fruits, they often ate some immature ones).
But they tried to live on the island according to daily rhythm, or what they wanted to be daily rhythm, and when I was reading the book I felt like diarrhea was one of those moment: they needed to scan the time in the day to add normalcy to it, so that was its function.

paulopf 5/7/2012, 3:27 pm

Emile wrote:
Especially in that scene when -SPOILER- that boy Simone (...Simon in the original language?) in an hallucinatory crisis has the vision about the Lord of the Flies. That scene was brilliant, but don't know why I was crying like a baby.
I think that when he comes back from the mountain (he wanted to discover if the Beast was really there) and the other children were doing their awful rite that ended like it ended and that nobody want to talk about, it's like the highlight of the book, in all the eccellent and terrible ways. That, and the scene at the end.

Definitely. I think that scene confronts them and the reader with their monstrosity. The Lord of The Flies, the Beast, was not really in the cave or in a stick, it was among them. It was them. I think that becomes clear for the reader during the rite. These kids did that: bite, poke, tear. And we, as readers, don't have the consolation of it being an hallucination. It's true. It's there. It happened, even if they don't want to talk about it.

Emile wrote: About the diarrhea, what you said it's interesting! But it didn't impress me that much, haha. I only thought they used it, together with other things, to mark the time of their day in need of normality.
I mean, they surely return to their primordial nature and istincts, and on the island they are free from the chains of conventional and they show their background of animality. Surely they were used to grow in a society that give them, and now they need (they are forced to change diet and, since some of them could only reach some fruits, they often ate some immature ones).
But they tried to live on the island according to daily rhythm, or what they wanted to be daily rhythm, and when I was reading the book I felt like diarrhea was one of those moment: they needed to scan the time in the day to add normalcy to it, so that was its function.
[/font]

I agree that the diarrhea became a part of their day to day life, another sign of them trying to find a new normality. But, precisely, when something so humiliating as not being in control of one's basest urges is part of normality, I can't help but think that one's human dignity gets challenged. They can't reign over their bodies, they can't reign over themselves. They have to give in to an hostile environment's demands and part of those demands, in order to survive, is abandoning their human dignity.

Emile 5/7/2012, 3:57 pm

paulopf wrote:
Emile wrote: About the diarrhea, what you said it's interesting! But it didn't impress me that much, haha. I only thought they used it, together with other things, to mark the time of their day in need of normality.
I mean, they surely return to their primordial nature and istincts, and on the island they are free from the chains of conventional and they show their background of animality. Surely they were used to grow in a society that give them, and now they need (they are forced to change diet and, since some of them could only reach some fruits, they often ate some immature ones).
But they tried to live on the island according to daily rhythm, or what they wanted to be daily rhythm, and when I was reading the book I felt like diarrhea was one of those moment: they needed to scan the time in the day to add normalcy to it, so that was its function.
[/font]

I agree that the diarrhea became a part of their day to day life, another sign of them trying to find a new normality. But, precisely, when something so humiliating as not being in control of one's basest urges is part of normality, I can't help but think that one's human dignity gets challenged. They can't reign over their bodies, they can't reign over themselves. They have to give in to an hostile environment's demands and part of those demands, in order to survive, is abandoning their human dignity.

Yes, but I don't see the point of it. Why the author should humiliate someone on something natural?
I mean, I don't think they abandoned any kind of human dignity. It's an objective situation in that kind of environment. It's dirty, it's wild, but they are children lost on an island, it's kind of normal (if we can talk about something in this book that respects the 'normal' definition, heh).

Shinra17 5/7/2012, 4:20 pm

Emile wrote:I mean, I don't think they abandoned any kind of human dignity. It's an objective situation in that kind of environment. It's dirty, it's wild, but they are children lost on an island, it's kind of normal (if we can talk about something in this book that respects the 'normal' definition, heh).[/font]

I haven't read the book (haha, the guy who try to sneak in the discussion) but I kind of agree with this. There's not really any point to human dignity when there's no more human society. Dignity in itself is a human concept valuable only in human society and going back to basic and survival instincts would be the best adaptation to a wild and inhuman environment. If random people were picked up and dropped in a lost and uncivilized island, sticking to human dignity would be a fast way to die imo lol.

paulopf 5/7/2012, 8:53 pm

Emile wrote:

I agree that the diarrhea became a part of their day to day life, another sign of them trying to find a new normality. But, precisely, when something so humiliating as not being in control of one's basest urges is part of normality, I can't help but think that one's human dignity gets challenged. They can't reign over their bodies, they can't reign over themselves. They have to give in to an hostile environment's demands and part of those demands, in order to survive, is abandoning their human dignity.
Yes, but I don't see the point of it. Why the author should humiliate someone on something natural?
I mean, I don't think they abandoned any kind of human dignity. It's an objective situation in that kind of environment. It's dirty, it's wild, but they are children lost on an island, it's kind of normal (if we can talk about something in this book that respects the 'normal' definition, heh).

The author? No, no. I don't think the author was trying to humiliate anyone. But I do think, when the children had to adjust themselves to that situation, as well as to many others, because said situations were part of what their new environment demanded of them, they gave up some of their dignity and some of their sensitivity. Though, indeed, the lack of control over their bodies is just one factor, among many others, most of them more evident, in the tragic process that led these children to be stripped from the characteristics that usually set apart people and beasts. Like a degradation process: first, they give up something in appearance so trivial or they adjust to a situation that only seems natural in their new context, and little by little they have to compromise more and more of themselves, til they become, well, what they became in the end. Though, of course, different readers can have different perspectives and small elements won't necessarily hold the same meanings or relevance for everyone.

Shinra17 wrote:
I haven't read the book (haha, the guy who try to sneak in the discussion) but I kind of agree with this. There's not really any point to human dignity when there's no more human society. Dignity in itself is a human concept valuable only in human society and going back to basic and survival instincts would be the best adaptation to a wild and inhuman environment. If random people were picked up and dropped in a lost and uncivilized island, sticking to human dignity would be a fast way to die imo lol.

Yes. And this is what I think. In order to survive, they left behind certain behaviors, or acquired new ones, that simultaneously approached them to the nature of wilder beings.

BTW, baibai

Emile 5/8/2012, 5:10 am

I said the author because he is the one that want to transmit certain messages through the book.

And of course, everyone have different perspectives about certain things, we're just arguing for the fun of it, and it' an interesting discussion. : D

Okay, I try to make myself clearer. ...And this is diffucult in English, haha.
I think that, yes, human dignity (conceptually conceived) have no place where there is no more human society, since just the 'dignity' concept is a social superstructure. But I also think that dignity, in its vastest meaning, is something everyone of us have for ourself and the others, and that not disappears on an island just because the society built a concept on it. Even the neanderthal men had their.
Because, IMO, the human dignity resides on a purely moral plane. That can be shattered even through the fisical plane (and for this there are plenty of historical example), but not for what regards the biological function. You can't humiliate someone for this, because they are not abandoning or compromising anything of their dignity of human beings. The environment requires, the body adapts.

Now, I can understand that, in the book, the human dignity get erased and I agree, but for other events, not this one.
They -SPOILER- killed each other when they have not recognized the human dignity in the other, but even here we are on a mental plane.

paulopf 5/8/2012, 5:34 pm

Emile wrote:I said the author because he is the one that want to transmit certain messages through the book.

Ah, yes. I see. Though I think Golding just shows the characters going through different experiences. However painful they are, he doesn't strike me as set upon humiliating and mocking his characters on purpose, like other authors, who like to play evil gods might do.

Emile wrote: of course, everyone have different perspectives about certain things, we're just arguing for the fun of it, and it' an interesting discussion. : D

It is! And, you know? i've started wondering why that detail, which actually seems trivial, impressed me so much. I think it's because when I read the book, I got the image of those children messing themselves at any moment and location, having forgotten, because of their bodies' new demands, about everything concerning opportune places and times, simply because they couldn't help it. To clarify, and English is tricky for me as well, so I apologize, I got the impression they would do it wherever they were, alone or in company, and perhaps I'm being too delicate, but being in that predicament, not being able to relieve yourself in privacy, seems really humiliating to me. I would definitely feel like my dignity is not intact if I were in such situation. Of course, eventually it'd be a matter of adapting to it and stop caring, or die. But I got the impression that if they could adapt to that, they could probably too eventually adapt to more degrading situations, like torturing or killing others because that's what the environment demanded of them. I don't know. I felt like that situation, as well as others, was the beginning of the downwards spiral. I'm remembering now how, eventually, they stopped caring about counting the kids and it became natural that the youngest ones would simply disappear.

I'd like to know what you think of Roger. I don't know why, but that character, along with Samneric, are the ones who I remember the most.

Emile 5/9/2012, 7:32 am

paulopf wrote:To clarify, and English is tricky for me as well, so I apologize, I got the impression they would do it wherever they were, alone or in company, and perhaps I'm being too delicate, but being in that predicament, not being able to relieve yourself in privacy, seems really humiliating to me. I would definitely feel like my dignity is not intact if I were in such situation. Of course, eventually it'd be a matter of adapting to it and stop caring, or die. But I got the impression that if they could adapt to that, they could probably too eventually adapt to more degrading situations, like torturing or killing others because that's what the environment demanded of them. I don't know. I felt like that situation, as well as others, was the beginning of the downwards spiral. I'm remembering now how, eventually, they stopped caring about counting the kids and it became natural that the youngest ones would simply disappear.

Yah, it's probably pretty subjective. Dignity is really a big concept, and it's different for everyone of us.
Like, I'm vegan, and I shuddered at every hunting scenes, so all I could think of was if I would done the same if I was there with them, losing in that way my dignity in front on myself, since I'm not superior to anyone.

paulopf wrote:I'd like to know what you think of Roger. I don't know why, but that character, along with Samneric, are the ones who I remember the most.

You know, Roger is the character that surprised me the most!
I didn't care much about him throw stones at the others, I thought he was just stupid, and for the most past of the book I thought that Jack was the aggressive one in every way possible. But when the true nature of Roger get shown I really didn't know what to think! Jack was the stereotype of the bully and, thinking now of it, a political metaphor, but in the end a complex character. Roger, instead! He was sadistic and bestial, with no rules whatsoever, and I think is the author best rapresentation of that kind of human drives, human's most violent part when cultural heritage disappear.

I really liked the Samneric twins, and how they finished each other prhases. But the character I remember the most was Simon, and I don't know why honestly.

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