Books
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Yep indeed; there's a certain, very Russian wry fatalism that Shteyngart conveys like no other, especially in Absurdistan.
Speaking of books that hurt my stomach and make me LOL (even after repeated reads), A Confederacy of Dunces takes that crown for me. Good lord what a hilarious book. I think that Ignatius J. Reilly would have to be my favorite comedic character in literature, at least so far. So tragic that John Kennedy Toole killed himself, thinking himself a failure. How could the publishers not see the brilliance? I would have loved to see what else he could have come up with. And it paints such a great portrait of New Orleans and her people, including how they speak (phonetic spellings to convey the diction) and how some of the crazier among them act.
And speaking of dystopian books, I am somewhat intrigued by The Five Books of (Robert) Moses by Arthur Nersesian. Interesting writer and premise, but it is a biggun and a commitment.
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Oh god yeah, Confederacy of Dunces is so great, and his story is indeed so tragic. Didn't his mom take it to a publisher after his death and tell them they should read it? I think that's how it goes… oy, rough.
EDIT ah yep, just looked it up. Took it to many publishers, widely rejected until she convinced Walker Percy to read it.
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Yep exactly, Walker Percy being a brilliant writer himself (check out The Moviegoer if you haven’t) saw the genius for what it was. His preface on some editions is worth a read.
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…@jordanscollected just recently read this one, might be up your alley 'Minnesota Kid'!
...a little adventure involving a pool hustler and his stakehorse. Written by the stakehorse who I believe just recently passed away.
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Just finished up "The Chestnut Man" which was a solidly paced murder mystery, looking forward to starting "Chasing the Boogeyman" by Richard Chizmar, like a true crime conceit. I've been really deep diving into horror/mystery recently
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Read any Paul Tremblay @Joberwocky ? He's good.
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Sent you a PM @steelworker . One book, but I'd be interested in more. You have a best of?
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Thanks for tagging me @vaquero357, for some reason I didn't get a notification. I'll look into it as it's right up my alley. I love every intricate detail of billiards and I'm sure this book will be an interesting read.
Excellent pool should look really simple, because the shooter moves the cue ball around the table with such precision that it set's up the next shot with ease. that's the goal every game.
I play with some of the best players in the state, and a team in my league called "CR's classics" (named after a pool hall in Coon Rapids), just won the world masters tournament in Las Vegas a couple months back.
the Minnesota Kid has rough nights when we play those guys.
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…you're going to enjoy this book then. Guaranteed!
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…you're going to enjoy this book then. Guaranteed!
The tag on @jordanscollected wasn’t coded.
If you are using Tapatalk writing the “@“ first will not code the user name as a mention/tag. This is because Tapatalk and the forum engine use different codes. It is dumb and a PITA.
If you use the desktop version and don’t hit the highlighted name or write the name incorrectly, it won’t get coded as a tag.
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Got myself some new reading materials today. Anyone familiar with these?
The Blue Blooded one is particularly beautiful: turns out the cover is actually made of denim! I hadn't realized when I ordered online. It also has a feature on Iron Heart and a short interview with @Giles.
If anyone can recommend any additional denim-related "essential reading," I'm all ear!
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I was intruiged by the podcast but can't for the life of me listen to one… So I just ordered the book instead...
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/renegades-barack-obama-and-bruce-springsteen/1139886910
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I’m about ~75% of the way through “Empire of Pain” by Patrick Radden Keefe and it’s one of the best pieces of non-fiction I’ve ever read. It’s a real deep dive into the Sackler dynasty, chronicling the rise or Arthur Sackler and the subsequent opioid crisis caused by his family’s unwavering drive for wealth. I’m amazed at the depth and detail of this book, but also the pacing which resembles the best page-turning fiction. It’s not often that I’m hooked on a piece of non-fiction as I’ve been with this.
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I had minor surgery and getting meds for it was a nightmare.
In Pa. the MD told me he state law required he get approval for scripts, he couldn't just give me a script.
He was not happy about this.
I know addiction is tied to the fucked up economy and the deliberate sending of jobs out of the country and the Sacklers and pharmacies are talking through their hats about the amount of oxy prescribed but- how about being responsible for what you do as an individual? -
Part of what is so heinous about opioid addiction is that it changes the wiring of your brain so that you feel like you’re in horrible pain and dying if you’re NOT taking them. At that point I would argue that your agency is not the dominant part of the equation anymore.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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the resulting family health and death disasters speak for themselves
and for many chronic pain sufferers addiction is not their biggest health problem -
I knew nothing about the Sacklers.
I found this, which I guess is effectively a precis of "Empire of Pain", but buy what a shit show….
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain
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…@Giles that was quite an article. Deeply disturbing.
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Moving this reponse from the thread that originated it:
LOL again @Matt
@ARNC if you haven't read any H. P. Lovecraft, he was a pretty visionary writer. His stories (mostly short stories with a few novellas) have a sort of creeping doom atmosphere that has influenced a lot of horror that has come since. I'm not aware of anyone who yet has done him justice in terms of bringing these stories to life in film, but the basic gist is that we're not alone in the universe, and that there are beings of unimaginable power with inscrutable goals who, if they are not simply indifferent to human life, are malignant to it in the way that a kid with a magnifying glass might be to ants on a sunny day. The unimaginable power of these beings and our relative insignificance creates insanity in many of the characters in the books. And that's the big theme–existential dread: the vastness of space and time, that it's rife with unknowable, implacable doom, and that we are insignificant and powerless. That was probably much scarier when HPL was writing and we were learning just how huge the universe is, and going through the things Nietzsche observed after discoveries such as Darwinism forced us to reassess our place in the universe.
I am not sure why Cthulu--who makes limited appearances in the canon--got so much traction and popularity among the pantheon of alien inter-dimensional beings he created; possibly because he has a consistent form that can be understood and rendered more easily than some of the other god-monsters he created. But as much as I love Cthulu, my personal favorite of these beings is Nyarlathotep.
