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Whats everyone reading?

Started by Paul faplad Finch, 30 March, 2009, 10:04:36 PM

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robprosser

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

I loved her first novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and waited eagerly for the follow-up. I'm a quarter of the way in and it's proving disappointing so far. Much less dense and involving than her first novel though there is a little bit of intrigue. Let's hope it improves.

Apestrife

Tintin in Tibet Read a bunch of Tintin as a kid, but this is the book that stuck with me. Something about it's focus on friendship told through a down to basics adventure on snowy mountains. No spies or big plots, it's just Tintin trying to find his lost friend. Another thing I really like about the story is the yeti. It really feels like it's always near, but seldom shown. Fueling this are the different stories and opinions on the yeti people are telling Tintin. My favorite being the one about alcohol, and Haddock deducing one of it's supposed rampages to be a hang over. A hint of sympathy which is wonderfully broken when the yeti one night is believed to have stolen Haddock's last bottle of whisky  :D

Can't recommend the book enough  :)

Jade Falcon

Recently I purchased the Dragon Age graphic novel collection deluxe edition volume 2.

I've also been working my way through Scottish crime writers Stuart McBride and Denzil Meyrick.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

Link Prime

Jim Lee XXL

Had a vestigial nostalgic sting in my heart when recently re-reading some 80's / 90's X-Men comics digitally.
Some casual Googling led me to the holy grail of my personal peak-era X-Men; the HUGE 'Jim Lee XXL' book.
And when I say huge, I mean it's the feckin monolith from 2001.
It arrived in the post with only a minor corner ding, surprising all things considered.
Contained within is Uncanny X-Men 276, probably my favorite issue of the era - fantastic high stakes story by Claremont and probably Lee's most consistent sequence of 22 pages of beautiful A+ artwork. 
 
As gorgeous as it is to look at (original colouring and all), it's a bloody chore to actually read - I had to lay it out on the sofa, not a chance it can be held for any amount of time.
The book has an RRP of $100, but this Ebay seller has them up for sale at about half that price; https://www.ebay.ie/usr/gp_ltd?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2754

A solid recommendation if you're a fan of the era (and have somewhere to store the bloody thing).

pictsy

Aliens vs Predator: Hunter's Planet

This isn't as good as its predecessor.  The writing style wasn't as interesting and engaging and the story wasn't as good.  It was quite something when modified Aliens were being referred to as 'Buggers'.  I don't know whether that was supposed to be a joke or not, either way it wasn't funny... just jarring.  Nevertheless, it wasn't a bad book.  I got enough enjoyment out of it and it certainly had its moments.

I am continuing with my Big Read of old 2000 AD and Megazines.  I'm into the '98 era and just finished reading the first story of the reboot of Durham Red.  I have endured the Space Girls again.  Overall I'm enjoying it.  I'm also kinda excited because I know better is yet to come and I'm looking forward to rereading a whole lot of stories I only ever read the once.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 06 August, 2016, 09:44:18 PM
Read 'God Hates Astronauts'  Vol. 1 and BLOODY HELL it's brilliant. Quite bonkers but also very possibly the funniest thing I've read in comics for literally years.

Picked this up as part of an Image Humble Bundle and worth the price alone. Wonderous stuff, quite mind boggling. If my reading list wasn't so stupidly long I'd be snapping the rest of this up now. As it is I'LL wait for the next Image digital sale and feverishly purchase everything last thing I don't currently own... as should you...

YES YOU!

That was four years ago and I've not changed that much as a reader since... have I?

Well this was a weird read. So I got the rest of this so impressed by the first book - I absolutely loved it. So when I re-read it I felt pretty much the same, except as I headed to the end I was feeling it drag a little... I just put it down to being a bit tided as I got to the end.

Picked up the next volume the next night and it was a drag... I've read the fine volume over the last two nights and tonight was only half paying attention as I listened to the radio as reading.

I think the problem is it starts off as such a fresh and new things, utterly different, funny and exciting... and you keep reading and you start to see under that and realise the manic humour is actually a vendor, the imagination lacks foundations, the characters are their jokes and nothing more. There's no substance. And so nothing to sustain you your enjoyment.

It very quickly becomes tired and once you are past that initial giddy rush you realise its vapid.

I don't think I've ever gone from on such a high to such a  crashing low by reading just just 14 comics.

Colin YNWA

The Maxx 1-20

Well I actually read The Maxx Maximised but that doesn't really matter. What really matters is these are like no other comic I have ever read. The first 20 issues of this story tell a tale of the damage coursed by sexual violence, guilt and having a monster for a parent. It deals with spirit animals, shared mental landscapes harbouring apparent escape but really allowing damaging avoidance. It deals with the consequence of trying to hide the damage you have done with a lamp shade...

...in short its astonishing, simply astonishing. I got a lot out of this comic when I read it month to  month and didn't really have much of a clue what was happening. I've gottun so much more reading it in a few sitting and building the picture until the end when a wash of surreal methaphor surprising starts to make more sense than anything else I have read. I will get even more out of it next time I read this taking those two previous readings with me.

That was just the first story arc. There's another to go and I'm very much looking forward to it. This is simply breathtaking comics.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Right, well, hopefully I'm going back to education and university- sort of- in a couple of months (always maintained I would never be "out of education" as it's where I'm happiest, and the last 17 years has seen me having to mollify myself by various professional courses and NVQ type things) and so I've stepped up my reading around my interests related to the (online) courses I will be doing- my interests away from comics, the pulps and old issues of Fangoria, that is.

So the latest thing that's been eating up my time and attention is David Lewis-Williams' 'The Mind In The Cave', which attacks the pressing problem of the origin of cave art (and to some extent, portable art) in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. Where did it come from? What does it represent? Does it "represent" anything? And what is its relation to the dawning of higher consciousness? And furthermore (the bit I'm having difficulty with and which I'm hoping gets further explained in the remaining 90 pages) what does this mean for our favourite dead relatives the Neanderthals- did they really only have a Primary consciousness, therefore explaining why they didnt do some of the things their contemporary homo sapien neighbours did and why they are sadly no longer bimbling about over the fields of Europe? I have a thing for neanderthals (and would recommend Papagianni & Morse's 'The Neanderthals Rediscovered' for anyone who similarly thinks theyve been given short shrift and wishes to reclaim them somewhat) and am sort of hoping Lewis-Williams'theories are off base.

However, I rather fear they arent. The book is, simply, phenomenal. From an anthropological view it does fully explain shamanism and its role in early religion in a way that I wish a lot more fiction writers would read and stop just making shit up.

I rather feared it would be as dry and dusty as the caves it describes, but the text fair bounces along and a page never fails to go by without me feeling at least a percentage point smarter than I was before. Yes, it's all conjecture I suppose, but conjecture is only a word said with a degree of smarm if you've an opposite point to prove. And Lewis-Williams knows his stuff, and backs it all up to the hilt.

I have also been reading The Complete Future Shocks Volume 2- and usually that would be the book I would most excitedly grab for when unexpectedly given a few hours free reading time, over and above any non-fiction work of any kind. It's a mark of how heavily I'm absorbed in The Mind In The Cave that Tharg has remained on the coffee table tonight, and I've only just popped the other back on the shelf.

SBT

TordelBack

Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 07 July, 2020, 11:24:34 PM
So the latest thing that's been eating up my time and attention is David Lewis-Williams' 'The Mind In The Cave', which attacks the pressing problem of the origin of cave art (and to some extent, portable art) in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.

Really great book, one of my favourite popular archaeologies, but maybe drifting towards out-of-date now.  Can I recommend his equally readable follow-up Inside the Neolithic Mind (2005),  which revisits those ideas and takes them forward to Gobekli Tepe and beyond to megalithic Europe.  (To my horror I realise that one is 15 years old and all).

von Boom

Fountation by Isaac Asimov. It's been nearly 40 years since I read this. Asimov has been getting a lot of flack lately for poor characterisation and plot development, but I'm finding these stories just as enjoyable as the first time. Sure he doesn't whiffle on about the colour of the sky and how the characters feel about this or about how the taste of the soup is particularly sweet/sour/whatever but Asimov knew how to get to the heart of story and keep you reading. PC or not, Asimov deserves his place among the giants of science fiction.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 July, 2020, 12:48:00 PM

Really great book, one of my favourite popular archaeologies, but maybe drifting towards out-of-date now.  Can I recommend his equally readable follow-up Inside the Neolithic Mind (2005),  which revisits those ideas and takes them forward to Gobekli Tepe and beyond to megalithic Europe.  (To my horror I realise that one is 15 years old and all).

Inside The Neolithic Mind is actually sitting in my Amazon basket awaiting my hitting 'buy'. I'm glad you said that, as I was just a wee bit concerned it may not have been worth it, as the reviews I'd read did make it sound "more of exactly the same", but I so very much wanted to buy it anyway.

On the subject of 'being out of date', I'm already alarmed that my designated course text book is similarly 15 years old: Human Evolution An Illustrated Introduction, by Roger Lewin (5th edition, 2005).

SBT

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 July, 2020, 12:48:00 PM
Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 07 July, 2020, 11:24:34 PM
So the latest thing that's been eating up my time and attention is David Lewis-Williams' 'The Mind In The Cave', which attacks the pressing problem of the origin of cave art (and to some extent, portable art) in the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.

Really great book, one of my favourite popular archaeologies, but maybe drifting towards out-of-date now.  Can I recommend his equally readable follow-up Inside the Neolithic Mind (2005),  which revisits those ideas and takes them forward to Gobekli Tepe and beyond to megalithic Europe.  (To my horror I realise that one is 15 years old and all).

Man, I bought Inside The Neolithic Mind a good 5 years ago and still haven't got around to reading it. This has reminded me to bump it up a bit.

TordelBack

#6702
Quote from: SmallBlueThing(Reborn) on 08 July, 2020, 03:50:52 PM
On the subject of 'being out of date', I'm already alarmed that my designated course text book is similarly 15 years old: Human Evolution An Illustrated Introduction, by Roger Lewin (5th edition, 2005).

Hah, I believe I taught an adult education class largely out of the 1993 edition of that very book back in 2001!  It was very good back then at least, way ahead of most. Human evolution research is hurtling along at the moment, faster than even journals can keep up, so even the most recent text books will only be of use in giving you the history and foundations. I suspect you'll be getting anything up-to-date from current researchers via Twitter - even when I was teaching it 20 years ago the internet was the place to go. I envy you greatly!

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Excellent Tordles, and thank you for the inspiring words. I've just ordered Inside the Neolithic Mind and *paid for my course*, so- as my littlest guy used to sing, when he'd completed something, "done-dunny-done-done-done!"

I'm stupidly excited. And am now rereading Lewis-Williams' thoughts on the 'Lion Man' of Hohlenstein-Stadel in comparison with the article by Elle Clifford and Paul Bahn in the last issue of Current World Archaeology, and wondering on which side of the divide I fall.

SBT

Link Prime

Picked up a copy of Kevin Eastman's Totally Twisted Tales there.
3 slightly bonkers short stories with slightly bonkers Biz art (alas, using his current 'marker pen' style).
I enjoyed the first story in particular, reminded me of the much missed Banzai Battalion, and had some art assistance by the talented Eric Talbot (who previously teamed up with Biz for the eye watering artwork on The Melting Pot, if I recall correctly).

Nothing here your average slightly immature 2000AD fan wouldn't like, and defo worth a tenner.