bookshelves: book-club-2, fiction
blerg. i was intrigued by des hermies and durtal's early discussions on what would attract people - especially intelligent, sensitive people - away from materialism to spiritualism. i...enjoyed? (though the word hardly seems appropriate) learning about gilles de rais. i liked the yummy dinners at the carhaixes'. but i couldn't have cared less about the endless gossipy stupid musings about all the astrologists, alchemists, fortune-tellers, mediums, faith healers, exorcisers, necromancers, wizards, and satanists of the time; and durtal's constant, self-pitying moping about how much the modern age totally sucks grew tiresome after the fourth or fifth repetition. by the time the book finally rolled around to the much-anticipated black mass, i was ready to slit my wrists. ]]>
bookshelves: book-club-2, fiction, to-read
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bookshelves: book-club, currently-reading, non-fiction, philosophy-religion
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bookshelves: fiction, horror, infinite-summer, sff
i was surprised by how genuinely scary the first couple sections were - harker's stay in the castle and dracula's stalking of lucy - but once our heroes banded together and started maneuvering against the count, it became rapidly tiresome, with the action and creepy moments coming few and far between. still glad to have read it. ]]>
bookshelves: book-club-2, fiction, sff
cayce pollard is one of the most memorable & interesting female protagonists i've read in SFF. the premise & build-up was interesting, and the depiction of internet communities & personal relationships was especially nicely done - clear and realistic without calling too much attention to itself. but i found myself strangely not caring about the big reveal at the end. ]]>
"these bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' bar-guests an' bogles an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women a-belderin'."
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bookshelves: fiction, infinite-summer, to-read
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eva
added a quote:
"In hospitals I feel palpable comfort. I feel the competence, the expertise, so much education and money, all of the supplies sterile, everything packaged, sealed tight. My fears evaporate when the automatic doors shush open." — Dave Eggers
"In hospitals I feel palpable comfort. I feel the competence, the expertise, so much education and money, all of the supplies sterile, everything packaged, sealed tight. My fears evaporate when the automatic doors shush open." — Dave Eggers
eva
took the never-ending book quiz.
| questions answered: | 143 |
| correct: | 97 (67.8%) |
| skipped: | 0 |
| best streak: | 12 |
| questions added: | 0 |
bookshelves: fiction, infinite-summer
i spent the summer nestled in this ridiculous, heartrending mess, and now that it's over i have no idea, really, what to say.
"It now lately sometimes seemed like a kind of black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe. God or Satan, politics or grammar, topology or philately - the object seemed incidental to this will to give oneself away, utterly. To games or needles, to some other person. Something pathetic about it. A flight-from in the form of a plunging-into." ]]>