The Book of Hyperborea

As noted before, this is a collection of Clark Ashton Smith's interconnected stories about the pre-glacial land of Hyperborea. The tales are all pretty loosely based upon the general region of Hyperborea (pre-ice age Greenland) some 12,000+ years ago. Stylistically it sits right between Lovecraft's weird fiction and Cthulhu Mythos (which it is connected to) and Robert E. Howard's Conan and Kull stories; all with a light Greek myth sprinkling. Really, very awesome. I only have a couple left but I would definitely recommend it.

I also checked out a collection of Algernon Blackwood's short stories titled Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural. I'm trying to look more into the roots of Lovecraft and the weird fiction movement and stumbled unto this interestingly named fellow. I've only read the one short story "The Occupant of the Room" but it was enough to get me to check it out. I also have The Savage Tales of Soloman Kane by Robert E. Howard coming in the library soon, something I am very excited to read. I've read very little of Howard's classic Kane tales and am very excited to get more acquainted with them.

Cheers.

UPDATE: I purchased Stephen King's Different Seasons novella collection for only fifty cents at a local bookstore. I read Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption yesterday and it was fantastic. Next one I'll read from the collection is definitely The Body; which the 1986 classic film Stand By Me is based on.

UPDATE II: My GF got me The Lord of the Rings single volume edition for my birthday so I am plowing through that. 606/1008. I've been meaning to get my own copy for a while (I read my dad's '70s editions and the newer movie cover ones at the school library) and have had quite an urge to read it for the past few months. It's even better than I remember. A classic, of course.

"Children of Gabalawi" by "Naguib Mahfouz" ... this is the novel that got him the Nobel Prize, and almost got him killed my Muslim fundamentalists ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Gebelawi

Written by Zombie on 26.05.2010 at 14:29

"Children of Gabalawi" by "Naguib Mahfouz" ... this is the novel that got him the Nobel Prize, and almost got him killed my Muslim fundamentalists ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Gebelawi

Ah. Good. I will probably get this book later on.

Currently reading : The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowsky and loving it !

Today I received in the post Charles Neal's Tape Delay: Confessions of the Eighties Underground which is a collection of interviews, writings, illustrations and photographs from late 70's to mid 80's underground Industrial, No Wave, performance artists, etc. such as Cabaret Voltaire, Michael Gira, Nick Cave, Boyd Rice, Lydia Lunch and a load of others. Have just finished the Genesis P-Orridge section (the main bit I bought it for really) and was surprised at how relatively normal he was. Had some interesting ideas and notions though, he seemed kinda convinced that TV gave you cancer but he might have been kidding a bit. Looking forward to the Boyd Rice and Einstürzende Neubauten interviews.

Really want the RE/Search No. 6/7: Industrial Culture
Handbook but it's kind of expensive. And also toying with the idea of buying Paul Hegarty's Noise/Music: A History but it's a fairly academic read apparently which puts me off a little.

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

I never really planned to read this, though I was interested, because it is more or less spelling out what I already agree with but I was bored at work one day and one of my friends/co-workers had left his copy at work so I started reading it and got about 80 pages in and enjoyed it. I decided to borrow it from a friend and am 264/420 and while it's nothing really new, it's good food for thought. I'm not one much for selective exposure but regardless, this is pretty good. By the way, I finished LOTR.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Had it for ages, but finally got around to reading it. The Writing style is Beautiful, its very poetic. Its incredibly dark and violent, doenst let up on the bleakness at all so far, and just wow. The only thing that i dont really like about it is the gramma. You need to use a comma occasionally, it cant all be full stops. And also, some speech marks would be nice, so you could tell when somethings being said. And Chapters too. I know its all supposed to flow, and be read in one sitting, but if your tired or need a break, you need a good place to stop.
But other than those minor things, the book is brilliant. This is one book where calling it a masterpiece of modern literature is almost an understatement.

Written by whatsacow on 17.06.2010 at 04:10

The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Had it for ages, but finally got around to reading it. The Writing style is Beautiful, its very poetic. Its incredibly dark and violent, doenst let up on the bleakness at all so far, and just wow. The only thing that i dont really like about it is the gramma. You need to use a comma occasionally, it cant all be full stops. And also, some speech marks would be nice, so you could tell when somethings being said. And Chapters too. I know its all supposed to flow, and be read in one sitting, but if your tired or need a break, you need a good place to stop.
But other than those minor things, the book is brilliant. This is one book where calling it a masterpiece of modern literature is almost an understatement.

My girlfriend complained heavily about the weird grammar, kinda put me off reading it a little but I will get round to it seeing as it's my kind of thing.

Written by [user id=4365] on 17.06.2010 at 04:48

Written by whatsacow on 17.06.2010 at 04:10

The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Had it for ages, but finally got around to reading it. The Writing style is Beautiful, its very poetic. Its incredibly dark and violent, doenst let up on the bleakness at all so far, and just wow. The only thing that i dont really like about it is the gramma. You need to use a comma occasionally, it cant all be full stops. And also, some speech marks would be nice, so you could tell when somethings being said. And Chapters too. I know its all supposed to flow, and be read in one sitting, but if your tired or need a break, you need a good place to stop.
But other than those minor things, the book is brilliant. This is one book where calling it a masterpiece of modern literature is almost an understatement.

My girlfriend complained heavily about the weird grammar, kinda put me off reading it a little but I will get round to it seeing as it's my kind of thing.

The gramma is fine, its easy to read most things. Its the overwhelming despair this book produces. Its depressing beyond compare.

Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Only read the first chapter - picked it up cheap at a bookstore while waiting for the bus. Seems okay. Only work of his that i've read/studied was The Importance of being earnest in 3rd form, and it was only the movie. looking forward to this book.

In addition I'm working my way through a fairly hefty collection of lovecraft stories, just finished The Dunwich Horror. I'm about halfway through that - getting up to At the mountains of madness which I am very keen to read.

Also just finished Art Spiegleman's "Maus" - both parts. Fantastic Graphic novel - I hereby recommend it. Now read, my subjects, read!

Written by Entropic Silence on 17.06.2010 at 11:24

Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

Hahah, I'm now going through it as well. That is, I was near the end but got carried away with another book, Charles Dickens's "David Copperfield". It's less English compared to my previous book by someone who lived in 19th century, Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park".

I'm still in search for something VERY English, something that stands for different values.

Global Brain by Howard Bloom

I just started reading it so I can't go into the details yet but it is basically a theory that evolution relys on how well a specie can learn use and share that knowledge and that the Internet is not revolutionary in that domain.In fact the first cells did that at a speed way faster than any computers can calculate.I'm only at page 30 but its so well written and he has a shitload of references.Some people even see howard Bloom has a modern day prophet.I'm not in that category but if you want to understand human and animal behavior I sugest you to read the Lucifer Principle and Global Brain.

A Game of Thrones - G.R.R Martin

I started to read this because my sister recommended it so much. I'm at page 330 and all I've to say is: This isn't fantasy, this is medieval drama politics. Really, 330 pages and the statistics so far are:

- No obscure creatures/humans. The wolves are wolves, even if they are a bit more intelligent. Dragon skulls, yeehaa!
- No magic. I haven't seen any expect a mention of some armor which is believed to have magic runes (which do apparently nothing).
- No imagination for the landscape nor buildings. Eternal winter? Heck, I live in North. Big mountains? Wow, now that's original. Buildings? Big normal castles. Only even a bit imaginary place have been those forests with "faces".
- 330 pages of politics, backstabbing, plotting and dirges about dead loved ones.

Truly the book lives for it's name. I hope I'll soon discover the "epic fantasy" part. Or something interesting, anything! It's sad when book is described as "epic fantasy" and after over 300 pages the best part has been a sex scene between 13 years old girl and around 20 years old tribe leader. Brr, sick.

Just ordered this -



Should be some interesting Supreme Court cases to read. Stephen Breyer is one of the more interesting Justices

I'm reading Fallen by Lauren Kate. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I bought this book. It was cheap, it was, there, I bought it. It's done.
And on the cover it says something like "Perfect reading for fans of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer."
I just completely missed that.
The book is just...I don't know, ugh. It's like Twilight, only instead of vampires there's angels. There. That's it.

Also reading Skeleton Crew which is a collection of short stories by Stephen King. I'm almost done with it. I really enjoyed it. There's this story in it, called The Mist. It's the longest one there. Huge for a short story. More than a hundred pages. I thought it was VERY good. I know a movie based on the story exists, I don't know if I should watch it. I like the story so maybe yeah, but it watching the movie too seems kind of redundant.

Written by Deus Ex Machina on 23.09.2010 at 04:13

I'm reading Fallen by Lauren Kate. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when I bought this book. It was cheap, it was, there, I bought it. It's done.
And on the cover it says something like "Perfect reading for fans of Twilight by Stephanie Meyer."
I just completely missed that.
The book is just...I don't know, ugh. It's like Twilight, only instead of vampires there's angels. There. That's it.

At least you had a warning! I bought it on the spur of the moment. It was cheap (both, price and story) and I needed some english book for learning purposes. It looked perfect, but damn if I had known what was inside...

Finally got around to reading Matthew Reilly's 5 greatest warriors. He may say he took his inspiration from people like clive cussler and micheal crighton, but i'd say his biggest inspiration is "see spot run." His action sequences may be well, but his description is lacking, and it feels like a seven year old came up with the plot. A massive let down.

I'm reading "Veronika decides to die", the novel by Paolo Coelho, while listening to Saturnus album "Veronika decides to die". Isn't that great ?!

Seriously the whole book is based on madness and mental institutions and how you may want to live or die depending on your life prognosis and disease, and it's really good.

I just got this for Xmas yesterday, it's by an Austrian Economist, apparently it's a must-read in Libertarian circles. Should be nice.

I'm reading a biography of Fernando Pessoa, probably the greatest Portuguese poet that ever lived. I love poetry and have read all of his books, and that includes his thousands (exaggerating a bit) pseudonyms. This however is the first biography I read and it's been a really great read so far.

It's all in Portuguese, so I couldn't really recommend it to many people but Fernando Pessoa wrote English poems and those are really good.

Written by BloodTears on 14.01.2015 at 19:20

I'm reading a biography of Fernando Pessoa, probably the greatest Portuguese poet that ever lived. I love poetry and have read all of his books, and that includes his thousands (exaggerating a bit) pseudonyms. This however is the first biography I read and it's been a really great read so far.

It's all in Portuguese, so I couldn't really recommend it to many people but Fernando Pessoa wrote English poems and those are really good.

I've only read The Book of Disquiet by him and I must say it's one of the most intense and tormented exercise in introspection I had the chance to read. It ranks very high in my favorite books list

However for some reason I never dared to read any other thing he wrote Must fix that one day.

James Patterson - Along Came A Spider

I just love this author.. He wrote a lot of books but I like Alex Cross series.. This is the first book of Alex Cross series.. But I plan to read all his books.. He is just a fantastic writter.. I've read some of his books before I started Alex Cross series.. Crime novels are my favorite..

Written by Urs Blank on 14.01.2015 at 20:07

I've only read The Book of Disquiet by him and I must say it's one of the most intense and tormented exercise in introspection I had the chance to read. It ranks very high in my favorite books list

However for some reason I never dared to read any other thing he wrote Must fix that one day.

Oh, yes, that book is intense. I suggest you read other stuff. It's all very introspective, that is one his traits and also contradiction and how you can be the opposite of what you are or are you really? It's just fascinating to me and we have a lot of good poets. If you want to read more stuff he wrote with the pseudonym Alexander Search. Don't know if it's hard to find or not though.

Written by BloodTears on 14.01.2015 at 21:36

Oh, yes, that book is intense. I suggest you read other stuff. It's all very introspective, that is one his traits and also contradiction and how you can be the opposite of what you are or are you really? It's just fascinating to me and we have a lot of good poets. If you want to read more stuff he wrote with the pseudonym Alexander Search. Don't know if it's hard to find or not though.

A few years algo I also started to read a few pages of a collection of Poems he wrote under the alias of Álvaro de Campos and I remember it as really deep and well... poetic And that despite the usual loss that comes with translated literature in general, but even more with poetry. The problem being that it was a book of friend whom I lost contact with since.

I made a brief search and a lot of his stuff is available in French (including some he wrote as Alexander Search) so I have literally no excuse

Thanks for the rec

I'm reading this. Immortal. This Immortal. By Roger Zelazny.
I'm sure most fantasy geeks will be familiar with it or at least with the author. It's another great combination of sci fi and mythology (this time Greek.) I loved every book I've read by him, so I'm expected great things from this one as well.

Currently reading Catch 22, the style of writing is more complicated that I thought... but hilarious nevertheless ! some parts are really funny, so far it is the only book that could make me laugh out loud along with Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy.

Now reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

It's the story of a Dominican immigrant family living in Paterson, New Jersey. The narrative begins with Oscar, a D&D and Sci Fi dork as well as a hopeless romantic who is the antithesis of Dominican youth in urban New Jersey. It then moves on to tell the subsequent story of his rebellious goth-girl sister's troubled relationship with their hardened-by-life and dying Dominican mother. The other deals extensively with life under the DR's Trujillo regime, as well as the theme of a "cursed" existence (fukú).

Written by ylside on 20.01.2015 at 00:24

Currently reading Catch 22, the style of writing is more complicated that I thought... but hilarious nevertheless ! some parts are really funny, so far it is the only book that could make me laugh out loud along with Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy.

Agreed with everything you just said. The only two books that I ever thought were 'hilarious.'

Written by Zap on 20.01.2015 at 23:11

Written by ylside on 20.01.2015 at 00:24

Currently reading Catch 22, the style of writing is more complicated that I thought... but hilarious nevertheless ! some parts are really funny, so far it is the only book that could make me laugh out loud along with Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy.

Agreed with everything you just said. The only two books that I ever thought were 'hilarious.'

Have you tried Dirk Gently ? I heard it's pretty good too.

Yeah, interesting username

Written by ylside on 20.01.2015 at 23:16

Have you tried Dirk Gently ? I heard it's pretty good too.

I've been meaning to but haven't felt like reading much lately. I'll get to it eventually though. I need to have read everything by Douglas Adams (for obvious reasons.)

Lord of the Rings by Tolkien.. He was just a genius..