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Books - check them out

Started by reeper, June 26, 2008, 02:16:40 PM

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reeper

Reading Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. There isn't too much left out from the movie. At least so far. David Fincher and Jim Uhls did a great job of making the book into a movie. Of course the movie makes a lot more sense after reading the book.

I'm not very far into the book but I know the ending is different.


I finished Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. It was very strange, even for Palahniuk.

[spoiler]It's normal for the first 100 or so pages, kind of just going over the life of a person called "Rant", he's supposed to be a crazy person with a loving mother and he's kind of "super human" which isn't unusual for Palahniuk. He has super sense of smelling, he can smell whose femi-pad it belongs to.

Then there is a rabies epidemic.

Then he introduces destruction car derbies on city streets between different teenagers for fun.

Then Palahniuk introduces these things that are highs. I'm not sure what it was called in the book but they were pretty much just amplifies life for you so everything seems better. Makes colors look better, smells smell better and sounds sound better. Again, not that abnormal

Then time travel

Then the idea of Rant going back in time to have sex with his mother to become his own father, then this continuing forever.



Yeah, Rant was pretty stupid.[/spoiler]




So far:

Choke > Invisible Monsters > Survivor > Rant > Snuff

reeper

August 16, 2008, 06:12:24 PM #76 Last Edit: August 18, 2008, 05:05:52 PM by reefer
Quote from: Purloiner of Hares on August 16, 2008, 11:55:58 AM
I might reed Choke before the movie comes out this winter... it looks pretty good, and has that one Scottish actress in it who was in Trainspotting and No Country For Old Men... so her inclusion must mean it will be a good movie.

I'm currently on a break from leisure reading to focus on sax more (sounds odd, but the hours I would spend reading are the same I'd spend practicing)... however I have to read Americana: Dispatches From The New Frontier for school this year (10 days), which is a non-fiction travel narrative I guess. I'm about 60 pages in and it's a bunch of short segments about the author's experiences with different subcultures in the US... it's not really that good, but not something I'll have to force myself to read.
I suggest you read it before you see the movie. Reading a book about a movie you already seen is hard, you keep thinking of the movie, and the actors in it.

Also the movie looks pretty mediocre so far. Tell me what you think. I just love the idea of "Choke", the con artist plot of how he goes to restaurants is really neat. (trying not to give away anything about the book). I have to say it's edgy, but not as forced as some of his other books (see Snuff). I hate how he repeats this one stupid ass sentence in the book you'll see if you read it. About a sex addict so of course it's going to be "edgy".

As soon as I'm done with Fight Club I'm getting A Scanner Darkly, probably. That or something else from him. Along with Eeeee Eee Eeee and something else.

Eeeee Eee Eeee, probably only because of the name of the book.

reeper

My teacher is making us read Animal Farm by George Orwell.

I laughed because I wanted to read it. It seems a lot different then I expected. Haven't touched the book but I had no clue what it was about but it seems to be about Soviet Russia.

I don't care too much for politics but I'll try it out.

reeper

August 18, 2008, 06:39:04 PM #78 Last Edit: August 18, 2008, 11:34:38 PM by reefer
Quote from: Purloiner of Hares on August 18, 2008, 05:52:50 PM
Uh, yeah, the whole thing is synonymous with the Stalin/Lenin/Trotsky/Molotov conflict in the early years of Soviet communism. Not really amazing writing but it's not a bad read.
Thats what I thought. Oh well. It's not too long and I wanted to read it anyways.

Off to Amazon.com to get more books  befuddlement

reeper

August 18, 2008, 11:34:13 PM #79 Last Edit: August 18, 2008, 11:40:06 PM by reefer
Fight Club > Choke > Survivor > Invisible Monsters > Rant >  Snuff

I just finished Fight Club, the book had some more stuff in it and was still a great read. I really really really love how straight and to the point the book is, something awesome is always happening. It has a hell of a lot of stuff in it for being only 208 pages. The movie captures it very very well, some of the things that happened in the movie are turned around and sometimes for the better.

For instance the driver of the car when Tyler is driving into on coming traffic wasn't originally Tyler, it was a mechanic without a given name. Just some random guy, fit out much better in the movie.


But one of the coolest scenes didn't make it to the movie. The main character (name never given) at one point decides to take on all of fight club, he fights 30 people. It only describes the first four then the chapter ends but man, that would have been so freaking awesome.



I got some books from Amazon.com on the mail:

Eeeee Eee Eeee by Tao Lin
Vurt by Jeff Noon
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
Counterfeit Unrealities by Philip K Dick

And of course for school:

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Samus Aran

I had to read Animal Farm for school as well. It's great, but not nearly as great as 1984. But everyone knows that anyway.

reeper

Quote from: Kazmuffin on August 19, 2008, 01:40:41 AM
I had to read Animal Farm for school as well. It's great, but not nearly as great as 1984. But everyone knows that anyway.
I know I'm probably going to read 1984 for school at some point so I'll just wait on it.

But I pretty much can't wait to read it, one of my favorite type of books.

Kalahari Inkantation

I'm being forced to read A Separate Peace for my Summer reading project and, holy crap, this is the most boring book ever. I can't stand all of the unnecessary details they throw in there.

Actual passage from the book:

"I don't really believe we bombed Central Europe,
do you?" said Finny thoughtfully. The dormitories we
passed were massive and almost anonymous behind their
thick layers of ivy, big, old-looking leaves you would have
thought stayed there Winter and Summer, permanent hang-
ing gardens in New Hampshire. Between the buildings,
elms curved so high that you ceased to remember their
height until you looked above the familiar trunks and the
lowest umbrellas of leaves and took the lofty complex
they held high above, branches and branches of branches,
a would of branches with an infinity of leaves. They too
seemed permanent and never-changing, an untouched,
unreachable world high in space, like the ornamental tow-
ers and spires of a great church, too high to be enjoyed,
too high for anything, great and remote and never useful.

"No, I don't believe it either," I answered.

IS ANY OF THAT SHIT IN BOLD REALLY NECESSARY
Seriously, just answer his question and get to the fucking point. Half of what they're saying is utterly useless garbage. I hate this book. goonish


reeper

I notice if you say you hate something you start to enjoy it a lot less. If you stay it's just okay, you enjoy it a little bit.

reeper

August 25, 2008, 05:17:21 PM #84 Last Edit: August 25, 2008, 05:22:40 PM by reefer
I'm nearing the end of my current book. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry.



I loved The Giver as a child and since this is suppose to be somewhat like it and my mom had already owned it I decided to read it. It's some where around 7th grade reading level, not a hard book at all. I don't all together like it really.

It's quite boring so far, nearing 50 pages left too.


About a girl named Kira who has a twisted leg from birth, her father had been killed by "the beasts" at an early age while her mother died of an illness. Her house was burned down because of the village, the village burns down all houses of dead people who died from sicknesses to keep the sickness from spreading.

Anyways so usually people who are bored handicapped are left to the beasts to die because they're of no use to this community, she was supposed to die. She obviously didn't, only because of her father's power, who is now dead. And her mother kept her alive and out of the way until she too died. The community is about to set her to the beasts but she is found to be a very good sewer. She has to sew a robe for some community gathering thing.

So far she has some other mini stories and stuff but I suppose the point is that she has to gather the color blue, the only color she wasn't taught on how to gather.

And the book is really trying to make you question what the beasts are, the book makes it seem as if the community created beasts to make people fearful of them. To make them more controlled.


It has some cool ideas such as people are born only with one syllable names, and the wiser they become, the more syllables are added to their names. Four syllables is supposed to mean that they're very very very wise, they haven't spoke of anyone with more syllables for their name. Thats the only Giver-like qualities this book has so far.

But of course this book still has the potential to become awesome.

Daddy

Quote from: reefer on August 25, 2008, 05:17:21 PM
I'm nearing the end of my current book. Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry.



Are you going to read Messenger next?

I forget if it's that or Gathering Blue but either one or both make references to The Giver in a way.  I won't spoil it.  baddood;

I haven't read them in about 4 years so I don't remember much.

reeper

Quote from: Khadafi on August 25, 2008, 05:24:57 PM
Are you going to read Messenger next?

I forget if it's that or Gathering Blue but either one or both make references to The Giver in a way.  I won't spoil it.  baddood;

I haven't read them in about 4 years so I don't remember much.
Gathering Blue does, but not very much so far. I probably will but only if my mom buys it for her class, I may just ask her to. I force her to show The Giver to her kids because of how awesome it is.

I have about five books in front of me and everyone who has mentioned House of Leaves to me has said that it will take a while to read it. And of course I read as fast as how much I like a book so if I don't like it that much, it takes me a while to read it.

Kalahari Inkantation

I read The Giver in 7th grade and loved it. baddood;

reeper

Quote from: TECTRON on August 25, 2008, 06:15:34 PM
I read The Giver in 7th grade and loved it. baddood;
Same here, best book ever.

Kalahari Inkantation

Quote from: reefer on August 25, 2008, 06:18:08 PM
Same here, best book ever.
Yeah, it's definitely one of the best, if not, the best book I've read in school. doodella;

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