Repug's book of the month club

[DDTempest]

I pretty much only read on vacation ... I am currently on vacation ...

World War Z: excellent fictional telling of a worldwide zombie apocalypse, literally could not put it down until it was finished.

Mountains of Madness: Short story by H.P. Lovecraft (the guy who brought you Cthulhu) ... I've been meaning to read Lovecraft's work for a long time but this really was not very interesting at all and hardly would classify as "horror" ... would probably make an excellent movie though.

[Ironic Mustache]

Originally Posted by The Summarizer

kremlin, to quote cher, "do you believe in luv after luv?"

Life after love you god damned heterosexual! Get it right you breeder.

[Mr. Blonde]

I recently finished these:

Picked this up because it was touted as one of the top science fiction books of all time. Really interesting book for sure, especially as it was written in the early 60's. Basically everyone dies on a mission to mars , and this child is born, and the Martians raise him as one of their own. Another mission brings him back to Earth and he's a huge media/political gambling chip because of other factors. He also has powers. And then he starts a religion. There is a lot of free love.

Overall, it's an interesting book I think everyone should read at least once. Would have been a lot more socially interesting to read in the 60's and 70's. First half is awesome, second half is WTF.



This book was given to me by my gf, and I hate it when people give me books to read because then I feel obligated to. It was okay, it's about this kid going on a quest after his father died in the Twin Towers and a lot of it has to do with family history. It had some good bits of writing, but overall, I wouldn't recommend it. I heard it's getting made into a movie soon? I wouldn't watch that movie.



I've never been a horror fan, but I read this because I heard it's more of a Western/dark magic/adventure tale than it is King's usual horror repertoire. It takes place in what seems to be a post-apocalyptic wasted earth scenario with this gunslinger wandering around the Fallout-like towns searching for a Man in Black. It came highly recommended by a few friends and is a really fun read. I'm on the second book now, there are 8 in the whole series.

[Ironic Mustache]

Does tooter fish make seems or am I thinking of something else? Also, Blonde it sounds like you might be interested in the fantasy genre. How nerdy are you, because we might be able to totally bond right now.

[Mr. Blonde]

I don't know, what kind of scale are we using?

[Ironic Mustache]

Wizards and shit.

[Mr. Blonde]

You don't seem too excited about Game of Thrones starting tomorrow.

[Ironic Mustache]

The what now?

[thekremlin]

THE GAME OF THRONES! DONT YOU READ BLONDES SONG OF FIRE AND ICE THREAD? JESUS!

[Mr. Blonde]

And you call yourself a nerd. I'm not angry with you, IM. But i'm very disappointed.

[Ironic Mustache]

I'm all caught up now, pretty weird that I've been Ignoring that thread for some reason. I'm totally juiced about pirating that.

[Mr. Blonde]

Dragons of Eden is a Pulitzer Prize winning book written by Sagan in the mid-70's focusing on the evolution of the human brain, the physiology of ours as well as other animals' brains, and contains an extraordinary amount of speculations about the future of human intelligence and evolution.

One thing I noticed while reading this book is how many "common knowledge" things we learned growing up in school that are mentioned in this book. I can't help but think that Sagan popularizing these facts led to them being put in many a textbook or teacher's mind. I learned and solidified a lot of ideas in this book.

The second of Stephen Kings Dark Tower series. It starts off pretty depressing, but was full of great characters and interesting concepts revolving mostly around magic and alternate universes/timelines. The indomitable will of the main character, Roland Deschain (the Gunslinger) is very inspiring and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in fiction.

They're turning it into a movie in the next couple of years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dar...ilm_adaptation

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Ironic Mustache

Does tooter fish make seems or am I thinking of something else?

Tooter fish makes sense after reading the second book, yes. Have you read it?

[Mr. Blonde]

Just finished "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.

Truth: I've had this book for at least 3 years and have always taken it with me, but never tried to read it until now. Mostly because of the fact that I would feel weird with people seeing me read this in public. Not only does it imply that I have no friends, but I always think people reading self-help books in public is a little strange. This is how I overcame that problem:

This particular self-help book is not about manipulating people, as much as it is about getting the best for both people in a situation where two or more must work together. I would say the main theme of the book is to get the reader to always see things from the other person's point of view, which is extremely difficult to do for a lot of people. (I'm looking at a few Nubblites here.)

When reading the introduction, I came across the following sentence which really made me want to read it:

So refer to these pages often. Regard this as a working handbook on human relations; and whenever you are confronted with some specific problem, such as handling a child, winning your spouse to your way of thinking, or satisfying an irritated customer -- hesitate about doing the natural thing, the impulsive thing. This is usually wrong.

For some reason the "working handbook on human relations" really stuck with me, because as of lately I can't help but look at my fellow human as a bunch of silly and emotional, but also large, dangerous, and capable of cunning. The only way to control such an animal is through a form of respect and tact. And, also, it's worth remembering that I'm also one of these silly emotional beasts as well.

It was a really good read and I'll probably read it again soon, and keep it with me when handling problems with humans in the future. As much as I generally dislike the rest of the populace, they aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so I might as well learn the best way to control and get what I want from them.

The book is full of anecdotes from how various people, famous and common alike, telling of particular problems they handled by using principles in the book. A lot of them seem very common sense, but something being common sense doesn't make it easy to do, especially in the heat of an argument or disagreement.


It's a book that everybody should read at least once -- especially the self centered, who think that they are infallible simply because they're themselves.

[thekremlin]

Has anyone read The Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace? I'm wondering what other people think of it. It's a massive book and can be incredibly annoying to read. There are an incredible number of footnotes, so you have to keep flipping to the back of the book, and some of them are four words long, some 40 pages. And the story's structure isn't much more linear. It's a difficult read. On the other hand, it is a very good novel, with some very interesting ideas, and just as importantly, it can be hilarious. As in, so funny you want to go tell someone about it but you can't because you'd have to set it up for two hours (and you almost try anyway.) Anyway, this book is probably not for everyone; my Dad, who can read anything, couldn't finish it, but I got through it and felt pretty rewarded for the effort.



Infinite Jest - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[thekremlin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/op...html?ref=books

[Mr. Blonde]

I skimmed that and dont' know what the hell it was about, but http://books.google.com is a great resource for keeping track of your reads.

[thekremlin]

I'm going to start posting links with the disclaimer "Blonde if you don't read this, you don't need to tell us."

[Repugnant Abomination]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Has anybody else noticed a disturbing trend where UB doesn't read/watch anything on here that takes up over 5 minutes of his time?

[DJ FC]

I highly recommend the "Dual Lakes" saga.

[Fruitacious B]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

[center]

The second of Stephen Kings Dark Tower series. It starts off pretty depressing, but was full of great characters and interesting concepts revolving mostly around magic and alternate universes/timelines. The indomitable will of the main character, Roland Deschain (the Gunslinger) is very inspiring and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters in fiction.

They're turning it into a movie in the next couple of years: The Dark Tower series film adaptation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They've actually talked more recently about making it a miniseries starring Javier Bardem as Roland. The adaptation of the Dark Tower series has been loaded with roadblocks and cancelled productions.

Javier Bardem Still Attached to ‘The Dark Tower’ as Ron Howard Seeks New Funding | /Film

I just hope that all of the red tape doesn't effect what should be the greatest sci-fi/fantasy/western film series of all time.

[Mr. Blonde]

Been on a pretty big scifi kick lately:

Dune: I have seen the movie as well as the scifi series and, while the story is interesting, neither of them do this book justice. It's often hailed as one of the best science fiction novels of all time, usually in a back-and-forth with Ender's Game. It outlines a future society around 20,000 years into the future where humanity has spread into countless star systems and is ruled under an Imperial system with "Great Houses" that serve as Lords, Barons, or Dukes. The central theme of the book revolves around "Spice melange", a drug that grants heightened awareness, extended youth, and some prescience in select individuals. Spice is only found on one planet in the universe, the desert planet of Arrakis, also known as Dune. It follows the Atreides family through rise and fall after treachery, and the rise of Paul Atreides.

Book is 10x better than the movie or series, and both of them left out a lot (but I guess that's standard)

[b]Childhood's End:[b] I have never read an Arthur C. Clarke book, but I'm pretty familiar with his writings, and this book was like 2 bucks used so I had to pick it up. It's an interesting story taking place at the time period when humans are just about ready to launch a rocket into space for the first time, only to be hindered by an invading alien force, with thousands of ships and technology beyond anything we can even comprehend. The interesting thing about this story is that it's one of the few benevolent alien invasions; they stop all human and animal cruelty, all wars, and bring the standard of living up for everybody on the planet (OMG SOCIALISM). Eventually, using the technology the aliens bring, humans still have to "work", but only about half of what they do now, and only doing things they are interested in that involve responsibility, creativity and decision making; things computers and machines cannot do.

One of the cool things about this book, is that the aliens do not reveal what they look like until they have been hovering over the planet for 50 years. Most of their dictations comes from radio broadcast or with one human (as they hide behind a screen) from the United Nations who they discuss with.

I can't say much more about what they look like, but when you find out, it's one of the most interesting concepts I've ever read in any book, ever. Also you find out the ultimate purpose for what they are "grooming" humanity for in the book.

It's only slightly over 200 pages, give it a shot.

[SittinOnDubsWGW]

They're black, aren't they?

[Mr. Blonde]

No...

[thekremlin]

This was fun.