Books: Book(s) you are Currently Reading | Part 3

[Ouroboros]

The book seems to have gathered mixed reactions from critics. A lot of them calling it "inaccesible". I can't agree with that so far but then I am only like 50 pages in. It seems different from his other works even though he revisits a lot of motives from Outer Dark, NCFOM and Suttree. Its very heavy on dialogue and features a "conspiracy theory narrative" that you would rather expect from Pynchon than McCarthy. Looking forward to read the rest of it.

Almost all of McCarthy's work is inaccessible in a sense, I guess. I think a lot of readers tend to struggle with the somewhat plotless nature of his works, and The Passenger doesn't really deviate from that template.

That said, there are a few sections in this novel that are pretty tough. This won't spoil anything for you, but at one point we're treated to a lengthy treatise on the history of modern physics/quantum mechanics. I simply don't have the technical background to follow that thread to where McCarthy wants to take it. Afraid I also have to agree with much of the critical consensus on the Alicia/Thalidomide Kid dialogues - they get a bit tedious despite their obvious importance.

I agree that we see a lot of the same thematic elements cropping up, but now McCarthy seems to be synthesizing his philosophy on fate, grief, the nature of reality, and what we inherit from previous generation with what he's learned about Quantum Physics and consciousness from his time at the Santa Fe Institue. Much of it picks up on his excellent short essay The Kekulé Problem.

It's a heavy, heavy read. Echoes of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, Kafka's The Trial, Nabokov's Lolita, and even Hamlet. I finished it last night and my head has been spinning ever since.

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Babe Ruth]

Author lays out his timeline for the creation of (post '6os) America 2.0

 

[Babe Ruth]

Graphic novel treatment of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. Illustrations are very basic, but it's a nice hardcover format..

 

[Thucydides]

 

[Babe Ruth]

I'm not a Mormon, but recognizing doctrinal significance of the New World in Mormonism.. thought I'd check out this (specifically) Mormon take on Columbus' life. Brief read, it's almost like a hardcover pamphlet.

 

[barriers]

People talk like there is no bright side to inflation but whenever I read a story that has Phillip Marlowe sticking his neck out for, like, $150, I get a good chuckle in.

I'm currently reading the short story 'Trouble is my Business' which is probably the funniest Chandler story I've read so far. Mostly because of the odd amount of space given to describe how fat a character was.

“I called him up from a phone booth. The voice that answered was fat. It wheezed softly, like the voice of a man who had just won a pie-eating contest.”

 

[JetsFan815]

Reading the book of the Stormlight Archive "The Way of Kings", just over half way into the book and loving it. Very refreshing for an epic fantasy novel that focuses on only 3-4 PoV characters and only a couple of locations.

Esp after George R.R Martin's series has gotten crushed under the weight of the number of PoV chacters and locations to the point that very little progress seems to happen for many characters since the end of Book 3 of that series.

I didn't think I was gonna be a fan of Sanderson after I DNF'd Mistborn getting tired of all the explanations and repeated descriptions of the magic system that kept grinding everything to a halt but this one avoids all of that

 

[Babe Ruth]

The (sordid) life and times of Jeffrey Epstein.

 

[Babe Ruth]

Andrew Jackson biography..

 

[Babe Ruth]

Reprint (with a modern introduction) of an 1866 book. John Joseph Craven was a Union surgeon assigned to care for Davis during his first year of post-war incarceration. Craven & Davis basically became friends, this was a record of their relationship & conversations.

 

[Phil McKraken]

 

[Babe Ruth]

Hancock lays out his theory that America(s) were populated long before the Bering Strait migration. And seeks to prove there was basically an Atlantis-like civilization, lost to memory.
It reads like an old episode of In Search of..

 

[Spring in Fialta]

 

[Hippasus]

Contemporary Abstract Algebra, by Joseph A. Gallian. On chapter zero. This book has gotten to the tenth edition. I am reading the fifth.

 

[Hippasus]

View attachment 599721

Any thoughts on this one so far?

 

[eXile3]

View attachment 613250

I tried this and couldn’t get past the first 50 pages or so. Does it get better?

 

[tarheelhockey]

If your reaction is “hey that sounds interesting”, then you are the target audience and yes it is interesting.

If your reaction is “why would anyone write a book about this?”, it’s a surprisingly entertaining and light read which shines a light on social dynamics which are so fundamental to our lives that we just take them for granted. It explores issues you’ve probably never thought to think about, like:

- How do other cultures deal with the colonial imperative to name and number their streets? Anyone who has been to Tokyo can confirm that complex cities can exist without street names.

- If you ask someone what’s the purpose of having their address, chances are they reply with something about postal service or vaguely “being found”. But it’s also the underpinning of everything from taxation to emergency health services to voting to billing to census-taking. Yet the system is incredibly arbitrary, sometimes by design. And it’s often flexed as a means of power by governments, especially revolutionary governments.

- Street naming excludes millions (billions?) of people — the homeless, the transient, slum dwellers. That means they are excluded or under-serviced by all of the functions and services that rely on addresses (see above).

- What would an alternative system look like? Would people mind changing… and why?

It seems remarkably difficult to make this topic a light and approachable read, but Dierdre Mask does a nice job of it.

 

[Phil McKraken]

I tried this and couldn’t get past the first 50 pages or so. Does it get better?

Good question, I'm about that far in right now. I just heard it's supposed to be this interesting Gibson/Stephenson type novel.

 

[Babe Ruth]

If your reaction is “hey that sounds interesting”, then you are the target audience and yes it is interesting.

If your reaction is “why would anyone write a book about this?”, it’s a surprisingly entertaining and light read which shines a light on social dynamics which are so fundamental to our lives that we just take them for granted. It explores issues you’ve probably never thought to think about, like:

- How do other cultures deal with the colonial imperative to name and number their streets? Anyone who has been to Tokyo can confirm that complex cities can exist without street names.

- If you ask someone what’s the purpose of having their address, chances are they reply with something about postal service or vaguely “being found”. But it’s also the underpinning of everything from taxation to emergency health services to voting to billing to census-taking. Yet the system is incredibly arbitrary, sometimes by design. And it’s often flexed as a means of power by governments, especially revolutionary governments.

- Street naming excludes millions (billions?) of people — the homeless, the transient, slum dwellers. That means they are excluded or under-serviced by all of the functions and services that rely on addresses (see above).

- What would an alternative system look like? Would people mind changing… and why?

It seems remarkably difficult to make this topic a light and approachable read, but Dierdre Mask does a nice job of it.

Sounds interesting.. I might check this out; thanks for posting.

 

[Neil Racki]

Went on a vacation last month so I got some reading time in

Lunar Park by Brett Eliss (great read .. a good bit of self dick sucking by Eliss though)

Lock Every Door by Sager ... wouldnt recommend unless your in jail or on a 20 hour flight

Starting King's Mr Mercedes soon.

Started "100 year old man who climbed out a window"

 

[Babe Ruth]

The optimism, and brutal realities, of the mid 1800s' gold rush.

 

[Hippasus]

Abstract Algebra, by Herstein.

 

[Babe Ruth]

I should've read this ten years ago, but..

 

[Babe Ruth]

History and timeline of how humankind became a successful, social creature. The author references social insects a lot, as context for successful social species.. I think he is overconfident in some of his ideas, that are predicated on the theory of evolution, but there are a lot of good insights in here..