CoN 25th Anniversary: 1997-2022
What book(s) are you currently reading?

Posted: 12th July 2012 17:32

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I'll surrender the victory to you on the subject of Lovecraft, Sir. As a side, sanity is overrated and can claim a different definition depending on who you talk to. I actually find it an interesting discussion topic.

I had lumped The Hunger Games into the same category of inadequacy as I did Twilight, which I still refuse to have anything to do with, and never had any intention of reading it when I experienced its massive nearly rabid fan base. When an elder family member known for choosing good literature (aside from the hateful 'romance' genre) requested that I give it a chance, I did so, mostly out of respect rather than desire. Needless to say, it left me with a foul taste in my mouth. I find Ms. Collin's story to be nigh on plagarism of Battle Royale and it disgusts me.

As a side to this, I find it quite the shame that the literary world has digressed to calling these works grand pieces of fiction. Granted, I cannot be all that surprised as a fair number of my graduating class could barely read aloud if at all. Despite this, I still find it depressing that it was these stories that pulled the population back into literature now that Ms. Rowling has put Harry Potter down. I myself was never a fan of her series, but it feels to me like she put a great deal more work into her series than recent authors. It was the rabid fan base of her series that served as part of the reason I delved into Ms. Norton and Mr. Adams in my elementary years. Granted, in current literary discussions I find myself in, the topic of Mr. Burroughs, Ms. Norton, Mr. Tolkein and Mr. Adams is sadly met with confusion and a question as to who they are. To make matters worse, an acquaintance of mine who worked in a book store was met with a young lady who was desperate to find more vampire romance novels after reading twilight but had read everything in the store; when the last thing he had on the shelf was Mr. Stoker's Dracula, she was entirely confused and did not even know of the character let alone the author.

I also would like to agree with you, If I want something pulpy and exciting, I'll work my way into past authors and find something time tested and highly recommending by elder newspapers and the like; they usually do not let me down.

In the note of philosophy, however, I am only just being introduced. My husband is fond of Kant but finds Nietzsche to unbearable. I know little of either so I cannot stand beside one or the other.

This post has been edited by St Khael on 18th July 2012 15:32

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Posted: 25th July 2012 01:20

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Quote (Blinge Odonata @ 2nd January 2012 17:04)
As a change of place I'm starting Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo today happy.gif

My mother actually just finished re-reading that one, for the first time since she was a kid. She tells me she got a lot more out of it now as a grown adult than she did back then. Furthermore, she tells me, that since I'm a fan of old literature, The Classics, etc, that I'd probably get more out of it than her. Just so, the book has made a big move up towards the top of my "To Read" list. Unfortunately, it's her copy is on a Nook, so since 1) it isn't mine, and I'd have to take the device away from her for a long period of time, and 2) I don't particularly relish the idea of reading such a long book in electronic form, I'm forced to hold off for a little bit. Not that I suppose getting a copy of it should be that hard. French to English translations from the 19th-Century, particularly from such a well known author as Dumas, shouldn't be hard to find a good quality cheap translation of. I'm such a sucker for the 19th-Century, and I don't feel like I can pick up another Dostoevsky, since I've pretty much worked my way through his entire "mature-period" body of work in the last few months.

In the mean time, I've started Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Daniken. I understand that some of the ideas in the work have since been discredited (at least one by Daniken himself), however, the points made it in are certainly interesting, and since his view of things doesn't clash with my personal view of God, I feel I can go into it with an open mind, and thus be able to agree with or refute him without any personal bias.

I've always been interested in "conspiracy" stuff like this. Recently I've been introduced to Jordan Maxwell who (somehow not seeming to be notable enough for a Wikipedia article, never-you-mind all the Google results,) I understand influenced the creation of that Zeitgeist movie that was made a some years back. I've even listened to a bunch of lectures by David Icke (a man you might better know as "the inter-dimensional space lizard guy". He actually had a brief appearance in the Bill Maher documentary, Religulous, a few years back.), who despite, I feel, maybe taking his pseudo-scientific assumptions a step too far, makes a lot of good/interesting points, and is quite an eloquent speaker to boot.

I've also been making a more detailed study of book four of Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Nietzsche. Is it strange that he only gets better and better every time you re-read him? huh.gif

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Posted: 6th September 2012 14:32

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Quote (MogMaster @ 25th July 2012 01:20)
Not that I suppose getting a copy of it should be that hard. French to English translations from the 19th-Century, particularly from such a well known author as Dumas,

Oh it should be very easy to find in paperback/hardback/whatever, respected translations are published en masse. Totally with you on the electronic devices thing though, and the fair old tome that is Monte Cristo is a good-looking addition to any shelf =]

As for me? Medical texts about depression.. and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club

Second time round, for some reason reading this book makes me feel able to do anything..

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Posted: 7th September 2012 03:13

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I really don't know why I don't post in this thread more often, as all I do anymore is read and hang out in chat. Based on the count I just conducted, I've read 32 books this summer, so I won't take up the real estate to say something about all of them. Instead, I'll give my top six (that was where I could make an easy division) in order of increasing awesomeness.

6. The Awakening by Kate Chopin - The novella's portrayal is so authentic because its verdicts are so balanced. Chopin checks each of her advances, counters each potential clear 'answer' with an equally realistic opposite: the moments of eye-opening are matched by those of decline; the harsh grip of Edna's husband or societal habits are tempered by their kindness or begnin intent; the righteousness of love for Robert is called into question by her shunning of Alcee's. It is why the ending is so famously unclear, and why the work is such a success.

5. Daisy Miller by Henry James - It's hard to imagine how Henry James could have written this any more perfectly. It was especially exciting to read Daisy Miller from the perspective of having already read James' later work, to see how he evolved. The quieter second 'study', of the novella's not-entirely-reliable protagonist, is great; so is James' gradual (and thereby more realistic) development of the reader's understanding of Daisy. Lovely stuff.

4. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford - A really great novel. Ford has constructed the narrative brilliantly; it is both highly realistic and maintains a good plot arc without giving things away, despite the story being told retrospectively. The delightful unreliability of the narrator is ever-present without destroying his credibility entirely, adding another level of ambiguity to events whose meanings were already discolored and shifting to begin with - which is, of course, all part of the point. Lovely stuff, and the perfect length for what it's doing.

3. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - Very excellent. Not as powerful for me as To the Lighthouse, but certainly a must-read for anyone who enjoyed that novel, though Mrs. Dalloway is less heavy-handed. It's certainly interesting to look at the two comparatively, but I won't depreciate this novel's autonomy by thinking of it as a package. Mrs. Dalloway is really an impressive work; Woolf's interweaving of ideologies, times and persons is done beautifully. I found the novel's affirmation of human feeling as something real and essential is both striking and beautiful, in its own perfectly ordinary way - of course, in a novel that is built on the concept of the uplifting of the ordinary, that's exactly what I would hope for. Lovely novel.

2. Dalva by Jim Harrison - Wow, what a work. One reviewer said that Harrison makes his reader do too much work, but I think this is perhaps his greatest accomplishment here. The story is a brilliant exercise in subtlety, as well as knowing when to leave 'gaps' in a story so as to allow it to maintain its primeval aura. These two qualities not only fit perfectly with Dalva's character and the landscape so essential to her history but also keep the story from spiraling into something self-important or overly insistent, which could have easily occurred with this subject matter and would have corrupted its authenticity. Harrison’s prose provides the perfect music for a slow dance between the past as it slips into twilight and Dalva, learning to let it go, music that is both achingly beautiful and firmly real. I very much look forward to reading more from this author.

1. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon - Gravity's Rainbow is a really neat work. That said, it is also quite a difficult work, so I can't recommend it without a bit of a warning. Artistically, the novel is done rather brilliantly; it's impossible to separate Pynchon's plot from Pynchon's sentence-to-sentence writing: form and meaning are tightly intertwined. The novel is one large arch - gravity's rainbow, the path of a rocket. The characters begin by attempting to impose structure, to find lines of cause and effect, but these attempts break down in the third and especially fourth sections of the novel, which increasingly become a descent into the absurd. Much of the evidence on which cause-effect relations were earlier established is shown to be untrue, paranoia escalates, and coherency eventually collapses entirely. An incredibly interesting piece of art that was definitely worth the 'work'.

Edit
Just for the record, I copied and pasted these reviews from my goodreads page.


This post has been edited by Death Penalty on 7th September 2012 03:14

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Posted: 12th September 2012 04:07

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I've just started The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Have any of you read it?

So far it's absolutely fantastic. I'm generally a tough critic, but Kvothe (the main character) has utterly won me over with his story.

(I'm only 150 pages into it though, so please be wary of spoiling things for me.)

This post has been edited by Kane on 12th September 2012 04:08
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Posted: 4th October 2012 01:36

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I just finished book two in the Warlord trilogy written by Bernard Cornwell, too bad book 3 is 1000 miles away were I spent the summer. How can I forget something as important as the final book in a trilogy I'm enjoying?

In the meantime,

I read Eragon this summer, my boss had it sitting in the library and I was surprised on how good it was. I never saw the film, boy and his dragon, blah blah blah, but I enjoyed the book. The rest I ordered today. I'm looking forward to being able to continue reading the series.

The Renegade is also in the mail, book 2 of Jack Whyte's trilogy on William Wallace. I The Forest Laird in January and I've been anticipating the release of the next book since then. Too bad I can only order hardcover, oh well.

I read A song of Ice and Fire this winter. All 5 books in about 6 weeks. That was good. I saw season of Game of Thrones on HBO and was impressed by the accuracy depicted from the novels. Martin works with them on the show or it wouldn't be so. Great books, too bad the series ends on book five with a few more to go.

Conn Iguldenn has another installment in the Conqueror series even though he said he wouldn't. I knew he would write about Attila despite saying he wouldn't.

A Clockwork Orange and Fight Club I also went through the summer. I like seeing obscure movies and following up on the literature, but not the other way around.

Battle Royale was an awesome book. I went through the Hunger Games last summer and found out about Battle Royale from all the onliners crying out rip-off. If you've read both than you know it's definitely a rip-off, but I consent because it gets people reading.

So here I am, the book I was going to read while I ordered more is a thousand miles away. All that's lying around here now is Grisham and Brown. sad.gif

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Posted: 12th October 2012 20:21

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As usual, I'm reading like 23409283 books, but I won't bore people with them. Aside from my class reading, which is a bit meh at the present time, I have two books worth sharing.

A Passage to India by E.M. Forster - I liked this book more with every page. I loved both the philosophical questions concerning the problem of parts and wholes and the practical yet affirmational manner in which they were taken up. Though Forster's characters and situations were interesting as representative of larger trends or positions, their behavior and the manner in which they expressed those trends/positions was quite realistic; Forster's philosophic content is blended into dialogue and description splendidly, without feeling artificial. Unlike Howards End, A Passage to India doesn't go stagnant in its third quarter, and the characters have a more continuous path of development through the course of the novel. A clear and substantial improvement on the style of Howards End in every way; one of my new favorites.

Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford - I can't believe I'm saying this, but Parade's End is actually in contention for my favorite novel of all time. It's actually a tetrology, but one that is so interrelated that the quartet is almost always bound together in one volume. I'm currently about 8/9ths of the way through (it's rather long) waiting for a lull in my classwork so that I can finish it. Ford's writing is incredible: he excells at both writing a cohesive and paced whole and delivering incredible sentences. With Ford, it isn't so much that the events in the story give meaning to the overall situation but that the situation gives meaning to the events. He is, above all, a patient writer, and the result is an incredibly controlled work that delivers its aesthetic blows neither before nor after they are appropriate but precisely when they are best suited.

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Posted: 27th December 2012 23:50

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I got Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson by Gurdjieff for Christmas, and my goodness what a long read it is! So far I'm on chapter one, where he's apologizing for writing his books. It's quite interesting.

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Posted: 28th December 2012 06:09

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The majority is non-fiction law stuff. However I finally got myself round to reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. The only thing I keep thinking of is how many quotes I've read or heard attributed to Oscar Wilde as if he'd said it himself. I know Lord Henry is essentially meant to be Oscar Wilde but nonetheless I would hate it if I wrote books and my characters' classic lines were attributed to me. It's not right.

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Posted: 25th January 2013 13:44

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A Game of Thrones, by George R R Martin. I'll admit, I'd never looked at the series before I saw the show on which it is based. I always assumed it was just another fluffy princess & knight fantasy series, but I was wrong...very, very wrong.
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Posted: 25th January 2013 16:57

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Quote (Prince @ 25th January 2013 07:44)
A Game of Thrones, by George R R Martin. I'll admit, I'd never looked at the series before I saw the show on which it is based. I always assumed it was just another fluffy princess & knight fantasy series, but I was wrong...very, very wrong.

Hah, I just finished the first one myself. I really enjoyed it and now am starting the first season of the show. But before I start the second book in that series, I'm reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss for a book club. I'm about a quarter of the way through it so far, and it's got a very interesting narrative style - it's written almost autobiographically, from the standpoint of the main character having his life in the past chronicled. Every so often it jumps back to the present in interludes in the storytelling, which is a fun twist.

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Posted: 25th January 2013 19:04

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Always glad when someone bumps this one!

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry - I'm on schedule to finish it this evening, and wow, what a novel. There's enough talk of drinking to make even the soberest of readers feel a bit tipsy, but the attentive reader will find even more elegant sentences and carefully constructed metaphors. Not much 'happens,' yet Lowry's writing still makes the novel move quickly and interestingly. And again, the writing: the work of an absolute master, every sentence - and, in some paragraphs, each and every word - is carefully forged to the situational mood, narrator's mental state, and authorial interest at that particular moment. A novel which is never short of praise, and which lives up to its reputation.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens - My first adventure with Dickens, and wow, what a lovely time it was. Dickens is all about social realism - illustrating Victorian life in London on an expansive canvas, and to do so he creates an ensemble casts, reaching from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low. His characters each embody a particular lifestyle or life philosophy in response to their world, making each somehow simultaneously larger than him/herself yet without losing authenticity. Dickens is heavily critical, yet he never ceases to see the opportunity for good, as well as the good already present, sometimes in the least-suspected places.

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Posted: 6th March 2013 10:53

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War & Peace by *Count* Leo Tolstoy

It's awesome read it NAO! yep.. that's the whole of my review. I'm sure Tolstoy himself would appreciate it.

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Posted: 7th March 2013 07:14

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Quote (Blinge Odonata @ 6th March 2013 06:53)
War & Peace by *Count* Leo Tolstoy

It's awesome read it NAO! yep.. that's the whole of my review. I'm sure Tolstoy himself would appreciate it.

Surely, the man who wrote millions of words in a fictional opus about the war of 1812 would appreciate such brevity in a review of said opus. Surely.

Welcome to the War and Peace club! That feeling inside is, in fact, your glowing feeling of superiority over the rest of the world forming wink.gif .

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Don't you be tarot-fied,
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Sins exist only for people who are on the Way or approaching the Way
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Posted: 7th March 2013 16:34

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I'm currently reading A Storm of Swords, the third book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. It's pretty good so far, I've only been reading it for maybe a week now and I'm about a third of the way through. I'm finding all of the different plotlines quite interesting at this point, which is nice because I thought Dany's storyline in the second book moved like a damn glacier.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me
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Posted: 8th March 2013 05:51

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W&P was great, I agree. I need to re-read that someday, it's been so long.

I just finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It was ok. Nice to know about all the stuff Mr. Jobs did, and what he was like. It was also cool to hear about how such smart and dynamic people worked (not just Steve, but also Woz and all the other amazing people whom Steve encountered in life), and what their personalities were like, and how their policies affected them.
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Posted: 10th March 2013 04:55

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I've been reading The Kill Order by James Dashner. It's the pre-quel to the Maze Runner Trilogy and I'm absolutely hating it. It is nothing like I wanted or hoped a pre-quel to this series would be. It's going to get a scathing review on Goodreads most likely. Unless it can somehow redeem itself by the 60th or so chapter. I'm on chapter 47 so it's not looking too good.

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Posted: 10th March 2013 20:23

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Wow, you have a lot of patience. I would have given up way before chapter 47.
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Posted: 11th March 2013 19:00

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I keep hoping it'll get better because this authors books generally start out slow and you kind of have to slug through them for a while but then they get super exciting and you can't put them down until the end...plus I can't justify giving a book a bad review without reading the whole thing and I hate the book enough that I want to give it a bad review.

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Posted: 28th March 2013 00:59

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Bram Stoker's Dracula. I love Castlevania and learned they tied in to Bram Stoker's Dracula when they made Castlevania Bloodlines on Genesis.

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Posted: 28th March 2013 09:03

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Ah yeah, Stoker has a special place in my (undead, evil) heart

Well they did their best with the Gothic atmosphere, few franchises have payed such a homage to the genre as Castlevania has. Of course, Symphony of the Night takes the big prize here.
I heard about that tie-in from AVGN, I dunno man, it seems pretty weak.

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Posted: 30th March 2013 01:47
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Recently I've been reading The Pendergast series about an FBI agent solving supernatural cases. The first book Relic is so-so but the writing really improves as the series advances.

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Posted: 30th March 2013 04:01

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Joined: 18/1/2001

Awards:
First place in CoNCAA, 2015. First place in CoNCAA, 2013. First place in CoNCAA, 2012. Member of more than ten years. 
Member of more than five years. Third place in CoNCAA, 2004. First place in CoN Fantasy Football, 2003. Vital involvement in the Final Fantasy IV section of CoN. 
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Until I get my hands on R.A. Salvatore's new one, I'm catching up on Game of Thrones. Hoping to finish up Storm of Swords before getting too far behind in the new season.

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"When I turn the page
The corner bends into the perfect dog ear
As if the words knew I'd need them again
But at the time, I didn't see it."

~"This Ain't a Surfin' Movie" - Minus the Bear
Post #202944
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Posted: 27th May 2013 06:01

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Returner
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Joined: 16/5/2013


I've been reading David Sedaris's new book, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls. It's very much like his earlier works in that it is a collection of essays that feature his family members and associates. I never am quite sure how much of his is fiction, and how much really happened, but nevertheless he has this way of wringing gut-busting humor out of intensely awkward, occasionally horrible situations. I definitely recommend him if you have a sense of humor that can be described as "abusive".

Then there's what I have queued up to read: Umineko no Naku Koro ni (I like manga, take from that what you'd like), a book on the Civil War, and a surprising gift that was rescued from the dustbin at my work: a 1960s copy of the 1920s translation of Toukaidouchuu Hizakurige, a humorous travelogue/novel dating from 1800s Japan. The copy was nearly pristine, with color plates at the beginning of each chapter of views of each station along the Toukaidou. Why someone would want to throw it out is beyond me.

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TA-RU~!
Post #203446
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Posted: 27th May 2013 11:19

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Disciplinary Committee Member
Posts: 653

Joined: 23/12/2010

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Member of more than ten years. Member of more than five years. Contributed to the Final Fantasy VI section of CoN. 
Quote (MogMaster @ 7th March 2013 07:14)
Welcome to the War and Peace club! That feeling inside is, in fact, your glowing feeling of superiority over the rest of the world forming wink.gif .

I am a golden monolith

feels good, man.

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www.youtube.com/blinje
The victor sacrificed the vanquished to the heavens
Post #203449
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Posted: 27th May 2013 19:38

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Holy Swordsman
Posts: 2,083

Joined: 18/7/2004

Awards:
Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. Member of more than ten years. User has rated 300 fanarts in the CoN galleries. Participated at the forums for the CoN's 15th birthday! 
User has rated 150 fanarts in the CoN galleries. User has rated 75 fanarts in the CoN galleries. User has rated 25 fanarts in the CoN galleries. Member of more than five years. 
I'm gearing up for an MFA (Creative Writing) program, so I've been reading a number of essay collections: At Large and At Small by Anne Fadiman, 인연* by 피천득, and Essayists on the Essay.

*For anyone who's interested, the title can be translated as something like affinity or fate or karma.
Post #203457
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Posted: 28th March 2016 22:10

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Totes Adorbs
Posts: 9,223

Joined: 31/7/1997

Awards:
Second place in the CoN World Cup soccer competition, 2018. First place in CoNCAA, 2018. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. Vital involvement in the Final Fantasy IX section of CoN. 
First place in the CoN Euro Cup soccer competition, 2016. Voted for all the fanart in the CoNvent Calendar 2015. Voted for all the fanart in the CoNvent Calendar 2014. Third place in the CoN World Cup fantasy game for 2014. 
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I just finished up Console Wars, a book about the battle for market share in American gaming in the early 90's; while the dawn of the Genesis and Super Nintendo are the overall focus, the full timeline of the narrative covers from the NES/SMS days all the way up to the announcement of the first PlayStation.

It's a pretty fun book, especially for people who were gamers at that time, I'd guess. For me personally, it gave a lot of context to the things I saw and played as a tween/teen gamer at that time, and therefore was a good nostalgia trip but also explained a great deal about what I experienced back then that I wouldn't have understood at the time.

There's not much in there for Square fans, but I'd recommend checking it out anyway. Enjoy your AmaCoN link.

http://amzn.to/1UxV4Rn

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?
Post #210678
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Posted: 29th March 2016 03:06

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Black Waltz
Posts: 900

Joined: 12/7/2011

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Member of more than ten years. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. Member of more than five years. User has rated 25 fanarts in the CoN galleries. 
Right now I'm re-reading I Am Spock.

smile.gif Leonard Nimoy is really a classy guy. His book doesn't have nearly the foul-mouthedness or lasciviousness of Bill Shatner's memoirs, and he really has a great story to tell, what with the Spock character being so multi-dimensional and deep.

Truly unprecedented in TV, to be honest. Characterization tends to take a far back seat to plot development in TV, since there is only about 45 minutes of airtime between the commercials in a typical hourlong program. Spock represented a shift in how television viewers were starting to think; they were shown the emotional (is that the right word even?) turmoil of a fictional extraterrestrial, and did not react by saying "well it's not that bad, he's just an alien."

On the contrary, after The Naked Time (a Star Trek episode) aired, people started writing Paramount letters saying "this is AMAZING WTF WE'VE NEVER SEEN NOTHIN LIKE IT GIVE US MORE." It was truly a momentous development in science fiction (and fiction in general for that matter).

While his directorial career wasn't as extensive as some others' have been, his work was always top-notch and clean as a whistle. Such an impressive guy.

\\//_ "Peace and long life."

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X is blue.
Post #210679
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Posted: 3rd August 2017 17:37

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Joined: 31/7/1997

Awards:
Second place in the CoN World Cup soccer competition, 2018. First place in CoNCAA, 2018. Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. Vital involvement in the Final Fantasy IX section of CoN. 
First place in the CoN Euro Cup soccer competition, 2016. Voted for all the fanart in the CoNvent Calendar 2015. Voted for all the fanart in the CoNvent Calendar 2014. Third place in the CoN World Cup fantasy game for 2014. 
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I'd been wanting to try out some work from Haruki Murakami, a contemporary Japanese novelist, for quite a while, probably since the time that I first read a review of 1Q84 a few years ago. I never got around to it in my old home because the local library hours were terrible, but now that my daughter has a library card and goes frequently, I finally remembered to scan the shelves and found a couple of his novels.

I just finished Norwegian Wood last week, and have started Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage just after; one thing that I've heard about the Japanese written language for many years is its predilection towards poetic language in prose, and I can certainly see that in Murakami's work, even though it's been translated into English. The language is extremely precise and illustrative, but it's also lyrical and indirect, particularly in the way that he weaves references from general culture and integrates them into the plots actually taking place around his characters. The stories have a dreamlike quality that he establishes with time and place jumps, as if all of the stories are oral histories recalled from memory, or, often, memories within memories.

I'll definitely be planning to have a few more of his works brought to my local library branch once I finish up here.

http://amzn.to/2v09NwG
http://amzn.to/2v3evIE

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 3rd August 2017 17:39

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?
Post #213099
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Posted: 10th August 2017 17:10

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LOGO ZE SHOOPUF
Posts: 2,077

Joined: 9/6/2007

Awards:
Celebrated the CoN 20th Anniversary at the forums. Member of more than ten years. Vital involvement in the Final Fantasy IX section of CoN. Voted for all the fanart in the CoNvent Calendar 2015. 
Voted for all the fanart in the CoNvent Calendar 2014. User has rated 300 fanarts in the CoN galleries. Vital involvement in the Final Fantasy VI section of CoN. User has rated 150 fanarts in the CoN galleries. 
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Quote (Rangers51 @ 3rd August 2017 13:37)
I'd been wanting to try out some work from Haruki Murakami, a contemporary Japanese novelist, for quite a while, probably since the time that I first read a review of 1Q84 a few years ago. I never got around to it in my old home because the local library hours were terrible, but now that my daughter has a library card and goes frequently, I finally remembered to scan the shelves and found a couple of his novels.

I just finished Norwegian Wood last week, and have started Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage just after; one thing that I've heard about the Japanese written language for many years is its predilection towards poetic language in prose, and I can certainly see that in Murakami's work, even though it's been translated into English. The language is extremely precise and illustrative, but it's also lyrical and indirect, particularly in the way that he weaves references from general culture and integrates them into the plots actually taking place around his characters. The stories have a dreamlike quality that he establishes with time and place jumps, as if all of the stories are oral histories recalled from memory, or, often, memories within memories.

I'll definitely be planning to have a few more of his works brought to my local library branch once I finish up here.

http://amzn.to/2v09NwG
http://amzn.to/2v3evIE

You know, I've never actually read any Murakami - despite having heard similar praise of his work from a number of people for quite a while. I don't often read fiction that I don't study, heh, but if you've got one of his that you prefer I'd be interested to hear it!

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Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V
Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X


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