Hope it will be translated
1 Like
I just finished this, it’s dark and intense and by/for people who grew up on things like The Dark Crystal, very highly recommend if that sounds up your alley at all.
1 Like
Why? Because I’m interested in where we are coming from.
And because Irving Finkel is just a precious human being with a great sense of humour.
3 Likes
Currently reading Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Part of a virtual book club I’m in 
3 Likes
Because you never know.
Been reading ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ By Rick Warren, ‘My Utmost For His Highest’ By Oswald Chambers, ‘How To Get What You Want’ By Orsen Swett Marden, the book of Jeremiah, and curious to read ‘The Cup Of Destiny: The Quest For The Holy Grail’ By Trevor Ravenscroft.
The first two I read each morning as they are devotional’s and for ‘Spiritual Growth’ in understanding my relationship to God their both good. I had read some of the purpose driven life years ago but didn’t finish it. So I’ve been audio recording myself reading it and one I’ve finished on Spiritual Warfare called ‘The Three Battlegrounds’ By Francis Frangipane.
So far as the search for the Holy Grail, I really enjoyed Trevor Ravenscroft’s book ‘The Spear Of Destiny’ And from my experience with Christ when I was 22yrs old in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I’m wondering what esoteric/hidden info is in the tale of the story of Percival.
Developing faith to walk in unity with the Holy Spirit and be One with God/Love as Christ is. Really been getting into understanding the relation between the mind and the imagination in relation to this going from a concept to a literal manifestation of being. I got taken down only a month after being brought into this state back when I was 22 and learning how to avoid the same pitfalls this time around. Pride, and putting myself into situations of temptation that were beyond my grasp at the time.
Going to put up audio versions I’m recording of purpose driven life, 3 battlegrounds, and the gospel of John, which was the book I listened to over and over just before the Spirit in dwelt me literally. Eternal life, the esoteric Holy Grail/Fountain Of Youth, as Christ said, the word’s I speak they are ‘Spirit’ and ‘Life’, and as Peter said to Christ at one point, ‘You have the ‘Words’ of ‘Eternal Life’.
2 Likes
I found out about this accidentally. I found it very interesting, it sucked me in.
There are book shenanigans like that. Bolano, Pynchon, Calvino, Cortazar, Nabokov, Eco, Borges, Vonnegut, DFW…
Yet to get through a Pynchon. I feel inadequate
That list is giving me some motivation to get through current task. Would like to read some more Vonnegut and Calvino (read a couple of Vonneguts in lockdown - ‘‘Mother Night’’ especially excellent, and a big fan of ‘‘If on a Winters Night a Traveller’’)
Currently rereading Annihilation so I can tackle the rest of Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandemeer, as i gifted it to my friend who reads shit tons of physics stuff and wanted to engage him in more fiction. He raced through it and is waiting on me to finish so we can ‘readalong’ this ridiculous brick…
Ambergis trilogy, also by Vandemeer
2 Likes
right on brother
1 Like
I finished it a little while ago when I had Covid, but Nina Simone’s Gum by Warren Ellis was a great read (and actually quite short and easy to read with lots of photos, which was good for my Covid-addled brain)
It’s ostensibly about a piece of Nina Simone’s chewing gum (that he retreived from where it was stuck on a piano at a gig she played for the Meltdown festival), but it’s also a memoir, a meditation on totems, and the power of music. I found it quite moving.
4 Likes
I’m reading The Constitution of Knowledge by Jonathan Rauch, and can’t recommend it enough. I would go so far, as to call it a must-read.
Finished Solid State by Ken Womack, which is about the recording of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album. There’s the usual “on Friday, Ringo overdubbed the drum part” bits, but there’s also an emphasis on how new technologies impacted the music - specifically, Abbey Road’s new solid state mixing desks and the Moog. George Harrison owned the third Moog in the UK and it’s put to good use on the album. In a passage one of the studio staff mentions that George “loved turning the knobs” - clearly one of us! I thought the author could have gone even further with the studio tech side of things, but overall a quick and fairly interesting read which is still accessible to the non-Beatle obsessive.
I’m reading this because I want to know how to love my partner better!
And there is someone else who recently came back into my life I want to share myself with too!
It’s a pretty cool read 
2 Likes
It’s interesting, if a bit dated and at times badly-edited. I don’t particularly struggle with artmaking, but the authors touch a bit on our occasional preoccupation with legacy and how others view our art, and I found those discussions useful to think about. I do wish the authors weren’t quite so cynical.
I also just got this in the mail and I’m stoked to start it:
2 Likes
Bridge is better than Sprawl, as a whole. Neuromancer is untouchable but the sequels are a bit forgettable.
1 Like
been working my way through The Library of America’s PKD box set.
I thought i was gonna give it a once through and then give it away to a free little library,
but…
i just finished VALIS, and I realize I am gonna ave to read all the PKD books, and re-read these books over and over again.
2 Likes
Bernard Cornwell- Waterloo
Andrew Roberts- Napoleon
Barbara Kingslover-Demon Copperhead
S. King- Fairy Tales
The Great Courses Series- Decisive Battles of History
G.Zevin- Tomorrow x4
The history stuff is self explanatory. I teach history, I also like to read about the senseless deaths of millions, and yes, I tend to be a pacifist. Every now and then I become obsessive over an Era. This past month it happened to be the Napoleonic Wars. Reading about people like him, and Ghengis Khan, Alexander, Stalin, Mao, Lincoln, and some founding fathers, helps to remind me that no one is inate with super abilities, and that all these legends of time just happened to out narcissist the other narcissist. Cream of the psychopathic crop. Napoleon himself is a psychologists practice patient. Women issues developed early on based upon his over bearing mother and sister. One of the most powerful men who was a simp for a “not especially attractive” women who cheated on him every chance she got. A man whose childhood hangup fueled his ego, and when success came bit by bit, he proved too weak to control his own narcissism, and could be compared to a coked up hair metal superstar of the 80s. We tend to dangerously put people on pedestals and give them tremendous amounts of power. It doesn’t help when the people who are given this power are addicted to it, and always seek to have more and more and more. You can see this happening still today. You need not look to far across the world to see lots of examples. Humans fundamental problem is we have to relearn all of our failures from the past so we don’t continue to repeat them, but history often isn’t taught that way. A good deal of people learn a few major events, names, and dates but they never make the connections between the past and the present. So time just keeps on rolling on with the ever circulating shit shows. It’s okay. At least we have each other.
Copperhead was highly regarded last year, and it’s not that too bad. Not done with it, but it’s okay, sort of endearing, but sometimes instead of seeing the characters and scenes in my head, I see the writer feverishly typing away, with a shit eating grin that says, “wow aren’t I clever!”. But that’s far and few between.
Both Tomorrow…, and Fairly Tails were totally eh. Tomorrow was one of those books that tricks you into sticking around and reading it and by the ti.e you start to ponder why you still are, you realize how much you have left to go, so you keep going just to finish it, with a hope that it’ll improve. It doesn’t, and I’ve never cared less for a stories main characters than this books. They’re pompous, self-centered, and just…well shit.
King’s Fairly Tale may be the biggest disappointment, as I, like a few others here, mostly enjoy his work, and this book was on a few best read list (although im begining to doubt them). It has a few flashes of classic King resonating through, and it gets you excited about what you thinks going to happen, but it never does, and just limps along. The climax and resolve come and go so fast that you well seriously teased. I got the feeling that King just got tired of writing this book and/or the deadline was approaching and he just said fuck it! Plus, King cannot write good teenage characters, which I a problem because the main character is just that. He writes them in a way that they feel like brainstorming rejects from the writers room of Leave It To Beaver. That’s always been true. It wasn’t great because of how he wrote those orgy having kids, it was great because the fucking clown was pure terror.
Anyways, on to some more history stuff (you know the saying, reality tends to be more interesting than fiction) and some Cormac stuff I missed. I should probably wrap up that Copperhead book, and read a few classics I’ve never got around to. I’ve also got a Vonneguit book that has been on my shelf for 20ish years. Perhaps it’s time to crack it open.
5 Likes
How many have you read before you got to Valis?
Have you read Ubik yet?