Aaron’s Comments (group member since Jul 29, 2013)

Aaron’s comments from the Literally Geeky group.

Too late. It's mine.

I'll be the most popular book hobo of all.

I agree with you, Kim. The lack of enjoyable characters was a major drawback for me. The only one I found interesting was Beatty, and he was the villain. Granted, every story should have an interesting villain, but there should be an equally interesting protagonist to counter-balance them. Guy just didn't do that for me.

During the discussion, I brought up the part of the book I disagreed with the most - using the Bible to promote individual thought.

Today I thought of a comparison between the Bible and the very institution which Guy is attempting to rebel against. In Fahrenheit 451, books are symbols of free-thinking and are disposed of with flame in order to keep the masses in line. The Bible has an eerily similar message, as those who do not follow or believe in its teachings can expect an eternity of fire and brimstone in the afterlife.

To me, by bringing the Bible to Faber in the hopes of reprinting it and inspiring individual thought, Guy was simply replacing one version of suppression with another.

As I also stated last night, I'm not attempting to insult or challenge anyone who is religous. I'm merely using my personal opinions as a non-religous person to explain why I had a problem with that particular part of the book.

Now that I've had more time to think it over, another book has crossed my mind as a possible candidate - The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.

For now, I'm sticking with The Hobbit though, just so Lara doesn't steal it.

I've been wanting to read this for a while. It was going to be my December pick, but then I decided to go for something with a Christmas theme instead. Hope everyone likes it (including me)!

I'm a little ashamed to admit the only book on that list I've read is number nine. Guess I have a lot of catching up to do.

I'm not sure what my Top 10 list would look like, but I know, On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre would definitely be on it.

Hey guys! I just realised we're approaching 40 members here on goodreads. That's awesome! I hope those of you who read along with us have enjoyed our selections so far. You guys that participate in our live hangouts have made them so much fun, but we'd love to have the rest of you tune in as well! I know we don't do much promotion for them here on this site outside of announcing the date, so I thought I'd write about it on the message board.

Our hangouts are always on the last Monday of the month. We stream live starting at 10pm GMT on Geekocracy's YouTube and Google+ pages and generally go for an hour. You can interact with us during the show via YouTube comment or twitter.

We always try to keep things fun and interesting. We wore Halloween costumes and carved pumpkins in our October hangout. For last month's Eternal Pleasure discussion, well, some dinosaur props were used inappropriately. You really never know what's going to happen. Christopher Moore, the author of our December selection, most unexpectedly tuned in to our discussion of his Stupidest Angel book and answered questions and kept us laughing the whole night.

As I said above, these hangouts are a lot of fun and they'd be even better if more of you got involved. And if you can't make it to the live show, you can always watch them on YouTube on your own time or express your thoughts about the books we read here on the message boards! We'd really love to hear from you.

The next hangout is on the 31st. Come by, say hello, and let us know what you thought about Fahrenheit 451.

Same here. I've been putting it off until closer to the hangout so it'll be fresh in my mind. It's a fairly short book in a month with five Mondays.

I've been using the "extra" reading time to try and put a dent into the 1000+ pages known as A Dance With Dragons.

I love On the Road. It made me want to hitchhike across the country. It's probably a good thing I didn't.

I received Joyland by Stephen King for my birthday and am about to start reading it. Apparently, it's a cross between a coming-of-age story and a crime novel. It's being compared to King's Stand By Me.

Here's the thing with clichés: they're usually based upon a truth. Granted they take that truth (or elements of it) and stretch it to ridiculous lengths, but they're centered around fact. Here, the fact is that any book with Fabio (or a male 'beefcake' in general) on the cover holding a swooning damsel is predominately read by older women. And yes, in the eyes of the publishers, older is defined by 30+.

Look closer at the survey. 20% of the readers are men. Twenty percent. That means 8 out of every 10 of these books are purchased by women over 30. You won't find another genre of fiction with such a big gender difference. Even comic books. Therefore I'm perfectly comfortable saying I'm not in the demographic this story is made for.

As for the turtles, they didn't cook the pizza themselves. They ordered them. They are just as sanitary as what comes from your local pizzeria.

Sorry Ez, but in terms of consumer age groups, over 30 is considered the older crowd. It goes children; young adult; adult.

Twilight would be a young adult romance. It features a teenage lead and a high school setting.

If the romance features a lead over 20 and is set on a boat full of sweaty muscular pirates, it's for the older women.

Consumer gender and age is something that is tracked and analyzed for basically everything, so of course it matters in the context of book genre. And when it comes to books like Eternal Pleasure, the numbers prove they are written for and read by older women.

Once again, not discussing the popularity of the genre. The numbers speak for themselves.

The survey, however, just proves my point: 80% of the readers are older women.

Find another genre of fiction that's so lopsided when it comes to the audience's gender.

I'm not discrediting the marketability or success of the genre. I'm just saying I don't fall into the demographic for which these books are written, which is older females (no offense to anyone, but it's true).

A human woman falling in love with a shapeshifting dinosaur is just as silly to me as a human girl falling for a sparkly emo vampire who plays baseball in the rain. Yet Twilight was written and filmed in a serious manner and there were millions of people out there who were legitimately moved by it. Don't ask me why.

The makers of Sharknado didn't try to convince us that a whirling vortex of great whites and hammerheads is something we should actually be afraid of. They knew the entire premise was silly and made an appropriately silly movie that frightened no one.

The difference is all in the presentation. If Eternal Pleasure tries to be Twilight, chances are I won't like it. If it tries to be Sharknado, I'll at least enjoy its camp factor.

Duncan T. Bagg

I mentioned this on twitter, but I think these types of books fall into that 'bored housewife' cliché, which makes them easy targets for ridicule. The overall theme and title here (not to mention the author's pen name) make me automatically write this one off.

Eternal Pleasure could be the greatest literary romance since Romeo and Juilet, but I can't take it seriously when he's a shapeshifting dinosaur. That gif you posted proves my point.

That being said, I think it'll make for an interesting hangout later this month.

Johnson McGirth.

I'm currently halfway through A Feast for Crows. I have the next book in the series waiting.

After that, I'm thinking of giving the Kingkiller Chronicles a go.

Dick Longflop.

That's a little inappropriate...

That is excellent.