I know what you mean about your brain, my memory is truly horrible. I can literally forget something as I am talking about it. It doesn't happen often but it does happen once in a great while. Mainly I just forget other small things like why I am going into a room what books I have read, what games I already own and stuff like that. It does make it nice in that I can reread a book and remember a few things about it but the smaller details will still surprise me again and again. I have read Piers Anthony's On a Pale Horse and A Spell for Chameleon many times and have enjoyed then each time. I have also read and enjoy Laurell K. Hamilton's Guilty Pleasures a number of times as well. David Weber's Honor Harrington series is also a very good one to read. These are just some of the books that I like to reread every few years to ten years, I am sure there are many more that are escaping my mind at the moment.
I found some fun book reviews by this guy on Youtube -- but beware that they do summarize the books in question so only watch if you've read the books, or don't care if the books are summarized. He has a lot of other reviews as well, if any of you are interested. 1. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller (note that I read this book originally because my Dad gave me a copy and told me that it was one of his favorite books. It became one of mine as well (he also got me hooked on Ian Fleming's James Bond series). 2. Animal Farm by George Orwell -- I'm including this, not because it's one of my favorite books (although I do like it)), but because of a stupid argument I had with an English Teacher about it years ago (which I won't bore you with). 3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -- Even though Bradbury is known primarily as a Science Fiction writer, he'd be the first to tell you that this is actually one of the very few books of his that he does consider to be SF (he rightfully calls The Martian Chronicles, fantasy, and not SF). BTW, I was lucky enough to see him in person years ago before he died when he was the GoH at a World Science Fiction convention. I loved the stories he told about his experiences working with John Huston, writing the screenplay for "Moby Dick". And he's one of the best writers of the previous century, imho. No one can write prose like Bradbury. 4. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegutt Jr. -- Vonnegutt is one of my favorite writers of all time. This novel, along with Catch 22 (which I mentioned above) were named the 2 greatest novels to come out of WWII of the 20th century, way back (I think) on the 50th anniversary of D-Day (I could be wrong about the date). You wouldn't know from the review, but like Catch 22, this is a semi-autobiographical novel (Vonnegutt really was a PoW in Dresden during the bombing). I have to admit that the analysis of the book that the guy in the video makes is kind of on the meager side, considering all that's been written about it in the past, but what can you do in 2 minutes (after a 2-minute summary)? BTW, I love Vonnegutt, and one of my all-time favorite novels by him is Mother Night. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a novel that also spans WWII, but is not as fantastical. It concerns a journalist living in pre-war Germany who is recruited as a spy by the Americans, who know that a war is coming. They want him to pretend to be a Nazi-sympathizer, so that he can send secret messages to them. When the war starts, he's hired by the Germans to broadcast Nazi propaganda, and he hides secret messages in the broadcasts, giving away German secrets to the Americans. It's a fantastic book, and for some reason, it's one that has resonated with me so incredibly much and I cannot exactly explain why. I remember also getting into arguments about it with friends, who totally disagree with the point of view of the main character (which would be too much of a spoiler to explain).
Those are some damned fine books there Haldurson. I was arguing with an Englishman over politics just yesterday and brought up the mass bombing of Dresden as a main point. (First hand knowledge of that was credited with Slaughterhouse 5.)
I also kind of like Thug Notes style. I was reading a lot of the comments posted about these videos and others he's made, and I see that some people are saying that they hadn't read the book in question but now they really want to. I have a lot of respect for people who can take scholarly subjects and communicate their love and enjoyment of it to others in order to get others excited about that subject as well. There's not many people who can do that successfully.
I'm kind of zipping through Kim Harrison's Hollows series. I just finished For a Few Demons More. As I said in my previous review, the heroine of the series, Rachel would have hell to pay because she failed to ask the right questions. Well, hell has come to the Hollows. Not only does Rachel have to deal with 3 different demons, one of which is insane, but also, werewolves are dying around Cincinnati, and the I.S. might be covering them up as suicides. Or there may be a serial killer. And it all may (or may not) be tied to the ancient cursed werewolf artifact that Rachel's ex-boyfriend Nick somehow 'appropriated' in the previous book. Also, Rachel's chief nemesis, Trent Kalamack is getting married, and he wants Rachel to act as a bodyguard for his wedding. Plus there's trouble from Piscary, Cincinnati head Undead Vampire (and her friend/partner Ivy, and her vamp boyfriend, Kistin's Boss. And on top of all of that, everyone is starting to think that Rachel is a practitioner of black magic and demon summoning, something that could get her thrown in jail. BTW, what makes a demon, that would normally want to own your soul, or in Rachel's case, turn her into a familiar, be considered 'insane'? Well let's just say that that's a very good question. As with all of these books, there are problems with the writing, everything from grammar and spelling to illogical thinking, and plot issues and so on. But I can't stop reading them because I'm caught up in the story. And I'll continue reading them so long as there are more of them to read. As annoyed as I sometimes get at the author and main character, I still get caught up in the plot and want to know what happens to the characters. I consider it a bit of a guilty pleasure, tbh. And I just started reading the book that Loerwyn mentioned earlier, The Golem and the Iinni by Helene Wrecker. I've only read the first chapter, but I am hooked on it. I have a confession that I have a kind of predilection for stories set in New York, having been born in Brooklyn, and raised in its suburbs, only a half-hour north of the GW Bridge. It brings back memories (granted, this book starts out in 1899, so I'm not sure how relevant that will be).
I recently stumbled across the work of Laird Barron, specifically The Imago Sequence and Other Stories. He writes cosmic horror, dazzling stories of creeping darkness and lunacy that can get positively phantasmagoric at times. Cosmic horror is a difficult nut to crack. Most modern post-Lovecraftians seem to miss the point entirely, tossing mythos critters and happy endings around like confetti. Early Thomas Ligotti was incredible (before the stories were recently "revised" for "canonical" new versions, anyway), but Barron's work feels more real, somehow -- less grotesque, despite the hallucinogenic edge, yet darker. Philip Hemplow's Sarcophagus was a lot of fun, while I'm in that area, but Laird Barron is the real prize. Highly recommended.
I finished reading Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni, and I really enjoyed it. It tells a few connected tales, but primarily it's about a Golem (created in Europe by a rabbi for a 'client' that finds that its master has died on the sea voyage to the New World. And a Jinni, who was imprisoned by a wizard in a lamp hundreds of years earlier, and finds itself awoken. The connected stories take place primarily around the end of the 19th century in the Jewish and Syrian neighborhoods of NYC. Mostly, it deals with the Golem and Jinni as outsiders trying to fit in and go unnoticed in communities that are alien to them. What was most surprising to find out is that this is Helene Wecker's very first novel. I recommend this book not just to fans of urban fantasy, but to anyone interested to learn what life was like in NYC in two disparate immigrant communities.
I've just finished up another break from fiction by reading all sorts of books about ancient Egypt. Now, I'm going to visit my Isaac Asimov collection, starting with The End of Eternity. Spoiler: Blatant Self Promotion Warning Why was I reading about Egypt? For my free short story, of course! A sort-of prequel to Treasure of the Mayan King and The Golden Scepter, talking about Chauncy Rollock's first adventure in Egypt. You can get it right here.
Asimov was just so incredibly prolific (for better and worse). One of my favorites of his was The Gods Themselves, but since I haven't read any Asimov since I was a young teenager, I could not for the life of me tell you much about it. Of course I've read a lot of his older classics (like his earlier robot stories and novels), the Foundation series (at least the first 3 books), Pebble in the Sky, and a bunch of others that I cannot now name. He had a lot of good ideas in his stories, but his writing wasn't that great. That said, he was incredibly nice to his fans, was incredibly intelligent, had a great sense of humor, and one thing I most regret is that I no longer have any of the books that he autographed for me years ago.
You guys have all read Worm, right? If you haven't, go at it. It's very, very good! I'm also on Goodreads if anyone wants to add me
Any way I can get';that in a text file or other format? I have a problem trying to read walls of text on a computer screen. If it's in a different format, I could import it to my kindle.
BTW. I have joined Goodreads under the name "Haldurson" and added you as a friend. I've probably only rated about 1% of the books I've read though (and probably only remember the titles of 20% -- a few titles came up and I thought "Did I ever finish that book??? Did I ever start it??? Oh yea, I did read it. Now what did I think of it???) The perils of growing older (doesn't help that I have a sleep disorder, which I've been told may be a big cause of my memory issues).
Kazeto and I share your pain with regards to the sleep disorder. And my memory sucks for any age, muchless my current. I have recently watched movies I know I saw back a decade or so ago and I remember nothing of it.
There are places you can find it in an epub, I'll try and track one down, the author doesn't want them to be too avaliable until he publishes it himself.
Or if you use Firefox, you can use the extension GrabMyBooks which will export a web page to epub format. If you have Calibre installed as well, it can also export to mobi format. Here is a link to the firefox version. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/grabmybooks/
Added Haldurson and Nettle to my friends list on Goodreads. I'm on there as my pen name, Dyego Alehandro. I don't have any sleep disorders, but I do definitely know the memory thing. I can quote entire movies and seasons of TV, tell you what I've read...but when it comes to people? Seriously, people I was good friends with three years ago...no idea what their names are. None.
Thanks for that. I actually used to recommend Calibre a whole lot until I ran into some issues with it (like getting garbage instead of subscribed websites). But those were probably more complex than what I saw.
A little bit off-topic but still book-related... Amazon has added Goodreads integration to the Kindle. I'm not going to go into my whole 'adventure' with amazon tech support today, other than to say that I had to do an OS update, and the main screen now looks a bit different -- there's this 'g' on the menu that stands for 'Goodreads'. I think it's funny that Amazon discovered Goodreads just days after I did ).
Oh and one more thing (also slightly off-topic, but related). There's now a Humble Doctor Who Comics Bundle. I wouldn't normally purchase it, since there's only a handful of comic books that I actually like. But since it's for charity (and it's a bargain), why not? https://www.humblebundle.com/books?...ail&utm_term=0_990b1b6399-9502c3cae9-95085301 Oh and it looks like it also can include a Doctor Who game for Android, so maybe this should go in the games category also...
