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What Did You Read Today?


RoyWill Rumble

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I figure since there's a comic book thread here it makes sense to put this thread in the Entertainment section. Much akin to what did you watch, what have you guys read lately?

As for me I just finished Battle Royale. Yes, the book that we at EWB have based RPs off of and the book that has a movie based off of it, along with a sequel. Ever since watching the movie I've wanted to pick the book up, and being at EWB just further re-affirmed that.

As for the book itself, it's 600-some pages and it doesn't feel like it really drags that much at all. It's a really, really fun book to read and it's great to see how the kids die to be honest. The author, Koushun Takami does a rather interesting thing in the sense that he gives every single student in the class their time to shine, along with having main characters. So, all of the characters have at least some sort of substance and you have an idea of where they're coming from. Takami does a good job of balancing this, surprisingly. The only problem with this though, is he doesn't delve extremely deep into the characters aside from maybe ten students at most. This might put you off, but at the same time I appreciated being able to know at least a little bit about all of the students instead of not caring that someone died. And, surprisingly enough, I did care about basically every single death.

The descriptions and narrative language will by no means blow your mind, and it may be partially because it's lost in translation, but you definitely can get a picture of everything in you're head. They're still great, especially when it comes to deaths and fight scenes and the like.

Hmm, what else? At first I was a bit confused by Takami switching between the students so much, but I don't think he could have done it any other way. You take a moment or two, especially in maybe the first half of the book to grasp who exactly Takami's writing about, but that's really a minor inconvenience. At times the description of the island and its geography can be slightly confusing, too. It's a bit hard to wrap your head around the terrain and size of the island.

All in all, it's a really fun book to read and I wasn't bored at all. Takami brushes some broad strokes on some characters, but he does give all of the students a chance to shine in some way, which is a lot better than focusing on four or five kids and the rest just being names in my opinion. It was a really bold choice, and he still makes you care about the main characters. The ending is great, it's fun to read the deaths, it's got a message, it's a fun fucking book. Don't take it too seriously, take it for something entertaining and you'll enjoy it. It's a superb novel.

I'd say 8.5/10 if you take it for what it is. 'An insanely entertaining pulp riff', I believe Stephen King put it as. It doesn't slow down, it's fun, and although it won't make you think A LOT, it'll make you think at least a little bit. The premise in itself is great, too.

Second book I've recently read was Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted. It's a collection of short stories written by Palahniuk, which are written by characters in a story. The story goes as such: a bunch of writers isolate themselves from the world to try and write a masterpiece. Death ensues, dismemberment, a bunch of other shit. It, too, is a great fucking book. It's gritty as fuck and Palahniuk's way of describing things, especially in one particular story is superb. I'll just say, that one story nearly made me puke. I felt nauseous and had to put the book away. It'll be hard to read for some, but at the same time it's fucking superb because no book has ever done that to me. You get a real sense of how awful the house is that these people stay in, but at the same time they're torturing themselves ten times more than they need to just so they can write this brilliant piece of literature. As I said, it's gritty. It's fucking gruesome and I love how he presents his short stories by building characters around them and basically having the characters in the novels write those short stories and tell them. There's short stories, poems, and then an overarching story throughout the book. At times I felt it was kind of slow, but aside from that I really haven't got much bad to say about the book. The characters are incredibly interesting and diverse and you kind of get their life story in the short stories. All in all, it's fucking superb. If you haven't read it, read it.

9.0/10. I was tempted to give it a 9.5. In fact, 9.5/10.

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Having read Haunted, as well as Diary and yes, Fight Club, I really, really think Palahniuk is a one trick pony. Guts was disgusting for the sake of being disgusting. I can see both sides of the argument when people debate whether he's just being gross for the fuck of it, and I'll cede the other points but that one story is the one that just can't be justified. There's no point to it whatsoever, it didn't make me sick but it was completely and utterly pointless. The rest of the book didn't fare much better either, I mean, it's been ages since i've read it and don't really intend to again, but what the fuck was the point in the box thing that destroyed one of the women's daughter? It was mentioned and thrown away as a deus ex machina to give her a reason for staying in the hotel. I get the point of not explaining everything in the minutest detail, but the box thing was built up to be really important and wasn't ever explained. Eh. I couldn't connect with any of the characters, the ones I remember like the posh lady who dressed like a hobo, St GutFree etc were just really unlikeable. I hope I've missed a whole chunk of the book that gives it a meaning, but I finished it thinking "what a waste of time". Feel free to tell me I'm wrong :P

I had been reading Atlas Shrugged and I got...let me check....924 pages in before my brains dribbled out my ears. The premise was excellent, the most brilliant minds of their generation disappear and leave civilisation to crumble, great stuff. Except when Rand pushes her objectivism down your throat at every opportunity. Which she does. At length. Everytime something interesting is about to happen you get bogged down with different characters giving the same four page speech about how looters are bad mkay and brainy people are awesome and ugh. I have no clue how it ends, but I'm hoping a big nuke goes off and just kills everyone >_>

Since I gave up on that, I've picked up Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. Which is different. I'm only a few chapters in but it's engaging, even from the perspective of someone who's never done any sort of drugs. I thought I'd miss out on a lot of the narrative but it's pretty good so far.

And obviously BR is awesome.

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I can definitely see why one wouldn't connect with many of the characters. I didn't particularly connect with them, but I found them interesting at least. I'm a bit more lenient when it comes to stuff - Haunted kept me entertained and I enjoyed the stories for what they were. On second thought 9.5, maybe even 9.0 probably is a bit high and Guts was what it was to me. I don't think it had much of a point other than to just gross people out, and it worked. It's been probably a month and a bit since I've read Haunted.

Haunted is maybe an 8.0/8.5. It can certainly be argued it has no point and the characters you don't particularly feel for. However, it might just be me, but I'm not particularly sure if he was trying to make you connect with the characters. It doesn't help that he wrote the short stories first, then decided to write the story and characters (from what I know). The story in itself isn't amazingly strong. It's good, nothing much, and aside from one or two of the short stories I enjoyed them. Guts was what it was and I enjoyed it. I didn't mind Foot Work, either and Slumming was interesting. Exodus I remembered enjoying, too. All of the stories are absurdly unrealistic, though, I will admit. They COULD happen, but they're all pretty fanciful too.

Edited by Will.
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Not today, but the last thing I read was War Journal: My Five Years In Iraq, by Richard Engel. I'd reccomend it to anyone with an interest in the Iraq war. It's compelling, tragic and makes you open your eyes to Iraqi culture and what goes on daily in Iraq.

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Right now, I'm reading "Fragile Things", a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman, and it's predictably brilliant.

Right before that, earlier this week in fact, I also finished Haunted by Chuckie P. What a weird coincidence. In any event, I think the short stories range from ho-hum to brilliant, while the framing story's pretty overwrought and gratuitous and repetitive and overwrought. The characters are fairly unlikeable, yes, but they're also meant to be unreliable narrators in the vein of horror anthologies like the original "Tales from the Crypt" (the one with Joan Collins and Peter Cushing and Ralph Richardson as the Crypt Keeper, not the puppet). Hell, he even draws the comparison to Canterbury Tales and the Villa Diodati, so it's not like he was hiding his intentions. Whether or not it worked for you, though, is obviously subjective.

That being said, to say that the sole purpose of "Guts" is gross-out is really selling it short. Unfortunately, I think Chuck's doing himself no favors with all of the "fainting hype" that's surrounding that story. It's like when people overhyped "The Blair Witch Project," saying it was the scariest film they'd ever seen. "Guts" is really not that gross, at least no more disgusting than dead baby jokes or Faces of Death or other juvenile nonsense me and my pals dreamed up when we were kids.

The point of the story is made evident in the explanation of l'esprit d'escalier, The Spirit of the Stairwell. What I liked was that the point of the story is NOT that French expression, but what the expression leaves out. There are some things even the French don't have names for, things people don't like to talk about, like your mother finding your gay masturbation carrot or having to explain what happened to their son. That's what the story is about, how everyone has to suffer some secret shame or embarrassment in their life, but he's seemingly got one that trumps them all. I know I wouldn't want to trade places with St. Gut-Free.

And, yes, none of the stories are remotely realistic, but I also think that was intentional. They're all written in second-person narration as I recall, which is a really weird tense ("Don't laugh, but I'm going to tell you a secret..."), and utilize the whole "unreliable narrator" gimmick (coincidentally, that was also Gaiman's plan for most of the stories in "Fragile Things", which I didn't know before I started reading it right after "Haunted"). It's why I also take the self-mutilation with a grain of salt. All of the characters are prone to gross exaggeration and are engaged in the act of creating fiction, so none of their claims or experiences are to be taken as gospel truth.

Sorry to go off on a little rant, and I don't want to sound like some English teacher, I just really like discussing literature. I'm just glad, but not surprised given the high signal-to-noise ratio, that folks on EWB still read books. We're a dying breed, my friends. (Y)

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Recently I read the Viking trilogy (the first two thirds anyway, I can't find King's Man anywhere :() by Tim Severin.

Thoroughly awesome book, highly recommended to anyone with an interest in Viking/Medieval culture. It's one of those books that's based on fact, featuring real historical figures, seen through the eyes of a fictional character (although there is evidence that he did exist, he clearly didn't do half the things he did in the book). It's sorta like the Bible. ¬_¬

The trilogy follows the life of Thorgils Liefsson, under the premise of being a sort of autobiography of his discovered hidden away in some sacred texts. It follows his life through from his childhood, growing up in Greenland, Iceland and Vinland (modern day Newfoundland), in the second book he travels to loads of places and gets up to loads of things (including, but not limited to, fucking Knut's wife, a lot, and becoming one of the Varangian Guard in Constantinople, living for a year on a rock barely a mile square with his best/only friend who's an outlaw, becoming a Jomsviking - although not entirely willingly, becoming an Irish monk - even less willingly, escaping and ending up in the Battle of Clontarf (unfortunately on the side of Máel Mórda), and loads of other cool stuff).

There's loads of emphasis on the Old Ways vs. White Christ, as you'd expect considering it's set in 1000AD, and there's loads of superstitious stuff which is just the right side of fantasy (his mother was a volva (a witch), and loads of disturbing stuff happens regarding that. He's therefore a siedrman (seer... ish), so he often gets freaky dreams and visions. There is a lot of superstitious stuff in the book, most of it pertaining to Thorgils' devotion to Odinn. But it's not like "pew pew fireballs and lightning bolts!", a lot of it is coincidence/things Thorgils couldn't explain at the time, being as it's at least 500 years before most Sciency stuff gets invented/discovered.

All in all, so far it's been an incredible read, an easy 9/10. If only I could track down the last book, then I could get on with Corsair, the first in another trilogy he's writing based on... well, take a wild guess ¬_¬

He's also written several non-fiction books where he follows the routes that famous people travelled, such as the Quest for the Golden Fleece (Greece to Georgia), sails from Ireland to Newfoundland in a Currach (a tiny boat made of leather), travels the route Ulysses took from Troy to Ithaca, etc, and I really must read at least some of those soon.

Tim Severin. Worship him.

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Guest Mr. Potato Head

The last thing I read for non-school reasons is "How To Be A Canadian" by Will and Ian Ferguson. It's pretty funny, more so because of the now-dated references to the likes of Stockwell Day and the crappiness of the Calgary Flames.

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Just finished reading "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" by Tucker Max. Great book. It is basically just a book with a bunch of his short stories he wrote on his blog on his website. It has a variety of subjects ranging from blowjobs to redneck fights, to going to Midland, Texas and Vegas.

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This thread has reminded me that I've been meaning to pick up "Fragile Things" since it came out - Gaiman can be a little patchy outside of graphic novels, as much as I love him, but judging by "Smoke And Mirrors" he can really nail a short story - I think it helps him not to have to flesh out an idea too much, as some of his full-length novels tend to drag or become a little repetitive or predictable or just plain daft.

Anyhow, I'm currently reading "Space Is The Place", a biography of Sun Ra, which is fantastic. It's phenomenally well-researched, as it's notoriously difficult to find out anything about the guy's past, and it's brilliantly written as well, looking at the jazz scene that he was a part of as well as looking at things from an afro-historic perspective at times too, while never swamping you with needless history or academia. I'm very much looking forward to getting further in to the point where he becomes the Arkestra leader from Saturn and just plain brilliant.

Just finished reading Ralph Steadman's "The Joke's Over", which is essentially a memoir of his time knowing and working with Hunter S. Thompson (Steadman, for any of you who don't know, illustrated much of Thompson's work, most famously Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas, and was an integral part of the "Gonzo" style), it's the second time I've read it, and it's so much better than it really feels like it should be - Steadman is not a professional writer, and sometimes it shows, but most of the times the sheer affection he obviously harbours towards Hunter, which comes out even when he's showering him in vitriol for his unpleasant behaviour, somewhat shadowing Hunter's own attitudes towards Oscar Acosta, just makes the book worth reading in itself, it feels like such a labour of love that you can't help but enjoy it. Fuck any of the other HST biographies out there, this one might not be as informative when it comes to the when's and the where's, but it'll be a much more entertaining read and give you a much better picture of the man in question.

Also just read Alan Moore's "Lost Girls". It's just filth. I was kind of aware of that, but was still expecting something of substance in there holding it all together. But no.

What I've got lined up to read now are; "Wild Years: The Music & Myth Of Tom Waits", "The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer", "The Outlaw Journal Of American Poetry" and a shitload of Yukio Mishima and Tao Lin.

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I'm reading A Storm of Swords from the A Song of Fire & Ice series, which I've been absolutely plowing through in recent weeks. It's a pity nobody here has the fourth book :crying:

Preparing to move on to Pillars of Earth and World Without End next. A mate was so keen for me to read them that he paid the $60 to order them for me from Amazon.

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"The Outlaw Journal Of American Poetry"? That sounds really interesting.

I got the name wrong, it's actually the Outlaw BIBLE of American Poetry. I haven't had chance to give it an in-depth read, but I've thumbed through it and it's definitely worth buying - it's a hefty, hefty tome, bigger than any other collection of poetry I own, and very comprehensive. Starts around the Beat Generation, so you've got your obvious choices there - Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Cassady - but really delves into more obscure and pretty much forgotten beatnik poets, many of whom I've never heard of before, through hippy stuff, "spoken word", some decent representation given to lyricists like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Tupac, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Woody Guthrie and Jim Morrison, some stuff by Hunter S. Thompson, even something by Jackson Pollock, James Dean and Che Guevera - so it seems about as comprehensive as you can get.

I'm definitely looking forward to being able to pore over it at length once I've got my other books out of the way, I have to admit that despite wanting to argue for English literary superiority I can't think of any period of literary history more exciting to me than the past fifty years or so of American "outlaw" literature, so it's pretty much a dream book for me.

Anyhow, I also now have "Eeeee Eee Eeee" by Tao Lin added to my "to read" list.

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I think I'll check that out.

Anyway, just picked up 'I Killed' from the library today. It's a collection of road stories from quite a lot of big American comics. I'm not even a third of the way through and I already love it. If you even like stand-up comedy in the least bit, read this book. I love it ten times more than any person should because I'm a comic myself, so I know that this kind of shit really happens and it doesn't surprise me as much as it might anyone else, but I still find myself just going "Wow, what the fuck" quite a bit. Then, then I laugh for a very long time. Seriously, this book will probably be 10/10 easily. Read it.

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I just started reading "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski while I'm still reading Neil Gaiman's "Fragile Things" at work.

"House of Leaves" is a bit pretentious and unwieldy, but undeniably creepy, and I'm less than a hundred pages in. (Y)

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I might actually pick up the Outlaw Bible to American Poetry if my local bookstore has it.

I read Perks of Being a Wall Flower today for the first time and got a mixture of emotions. I had heard a LOT about it, it was recommended to me by many people and I feel like I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I read it a few years ago rather than now. I can see how it would be a fantastic book when you're going through that phase but once you're out of it it's less significant. However, it still has that usual hint of heart ache and sorrow that everybody can identify with that makes the book incredibly enjoyable. I also love the style it's written in.

As a side note, did we ever attempt a book club type thing? I briefly remember us trying it (maybe it was made up in my head but I'm almost certain it was attempted before) and either way we should try and start one back up. I'd love to get recommendations for really good books to read and come to discuss here on EWB.

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Someone started a reading group a while back, I neglected to join because I didn't like the sound of the book that was suggested or something like that. I'm not a big fan of book groups anyway, I'd rather this just thread just be used to discuss books in general, maybe become combined into a pseudo-book group thread in itself if a few of us wish to read through a book at the same time, but personally I like being able to pop in, see what other people are reading, recommend anything I find especially exciting, etc., just a more relaxed approach.

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