Book Talk discussion
What Are You Reading?
message 1051:
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Jon Recluse
(new)
Aug 20, 2012 07:10PM
You got that right!
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GWhat the Hell is DRM, how do you hack it, what's a Sigil and how do I import something to it?
Okay.
Scott wrote: "Chris wrote: "For the record, I just checked, and my version is the old Permuted Press edition, not the newer Simon & Schuster. Regardless, no publisher has any excuse to put out something this slo..."Some of what you say is really misguided.
First of all, e-books are not always cheaper. And the idea that e-books being cheaper is the only reason to buy them is specious. I shouldn't need to go into it, because I don't think you're making a real argument.
Your level of excuse-making for how anyone "should" feel about typos is both a bit odd and simply presumptuous. How about you feel what you feel, and I feel what I feel without your telling me what I should feel, mm'kay?
You also beg a question when you say no OCR'd book is ever proofread. Who is to say they shouldn't be? Not just some, but ALL of them? Not, I think, you. For my part, I have seen some old books that have been well-scanned.
What's more, what about the fairly -- or very -- recent books that come into e-book form full of typos? What's the excuse for that? How amenable "should" I be for putting up with it?
I don't put up with inferior product elsewhere, nor feel guilty or misguided for noticing -- I cut those manufacturers off. Which is the minimum they deserve. Warrant of merchantability may not be easily enforceable, but you'd think people (now that the Supreme Court has defined corporations as people, I guess they count too) would have a little pride, a little self-respect, you know? How much does it cost to run a damn spell check? How truly worthless is the customer and his future business? Are the only profit horizons short-term? Just this book and GOTCHA! to hell with her? Who cares if she buys another?
Wait a minute ... am I a stockholder in a publishing house here, or a reader? I get confused sometimes ...
So, what are you guys reading?I'm rereading THE SHADOW OF THE WIND before I start THE ANGEL'S GAME.
Heretics, by Greg GifuneBest American Science Writing 2011
Parked the book about insect warfare
Re-reading Rock Your Plot
Re-reading Story Structure (Brooks)
Reading Sides, a collection of short non-fiction (mostly book intro's so far) by Peter Straub
Gnomes by some Dutch guy and Peter Stroud
dipping into and out of other things too
Damn!I'm impressed!
I used to read like that until I burned out one day.
Literally couldn't read anything for a month.
This is a pretty pussy schedule. I always admired Joseph Campbell's admiration of T.S.Eliot, when he asked, rhetorically, who could suspend his life and put aside his time these days like an athlete of the mind in the manner of T.S. Eliot? Reading that was the first intimation I had of the kind of dedication akin to exuberance that sets true intellectuals apart from the merely fortunately schooled and adequately attentive.
Marc, if you wouldn't mind sharing, how are you finding Sides? I was considering it, but didn't purchase it.
Just started McCarthy's THE ROAD. I'd attempted it a few years ago and hated it. Maybe it's the Blake Crouch books I've read in the interim (he's heavily influenced by McCarthy), but it's absolutely riveting this time around. I love when that happens.
Marc wrote: "This is a pretty pussy schedule. I always admired Joseph Campbell's admiration of T.S.Eliot, when he asked, rhetorically, who could suspend his life and put aside his time these days like an athle..."I'm sure Eliot had a wonderfully sculpted mind, but, in the end, what did he do with it?
Poetry......what a waste. :P
I love poetry. Some of Eliot's is quite moving.
Charlene wrote: "Marc, if you wouldn't mind sharing, how are you finding Sides? I was considering it, but didn't purchase it."I'm not thrilled with it so far, Charlene. It's mostly slavishly adulatory forewords for other people's books so far, and they go on way too long and flaccidly. I adequately enjoyed the one for The Stepford Wives. The one for Caitlin Kiernan was a dreary slog and the one for Poppy Z. Brite a technicolor puke of random, self-indulgent riffs so disorganized and irrelevant it would be hard for most authors not to take it as some over-educated jerk trying to pull off a barely sly and very weird insult. It was the worst foreword I've ever read, and I don't see how anyone is going to top it in the future.
He's finally doing one on Lawrence Block that I'm enjoying. But I like Lawrence Block. I don't know that everyone would be interested. His subjects so far have been narrow, with a specialist appeal.
All in all, I'm often getting the feeling of looking forward to him shutting up long enough to say something.
Now tell me how you really feel, Marc!*snicker*
Seriously, thanks. I'm glad I held off on it.
Marc wrote: "I love poetry. Some of Eliot's is quite moving."I like Ogden Nash.
Jon Recluse wrote: "Marc wrote: "I love poetry. Some of Eliot's is quite moving."I like Ogden Nash."
I like some of his stuff a lot.
I'm not sure where the idea of POD books coming from a scanned physical came from. POD means rather than having an initial run of however many copies, one is printed whenever one is ordered. It has nothing to do with the source.
I hope so. : )I started Blake Crouch's Abandon last night, and then didn't feel like reading it today.
So I started SW instead. It wasn't like Abandon was bad or anything, just not grabbing me at the outset, you know?
Does that ever happen to you all?
Oh yeah. Sometimes I am not in the mood for a particular book but if I put it aside for a bit, I really enjoy it later. I also get burned out on one genre and need to read something entirely different. Edgar Rice Burroughs or Raphael Sabatini are good choices then, or one of Jeff Strand's humorous novels.
Happened to me a few books back. Started one and decided I wasn't in the mood for it yet so went on to something else.Just started reading
. Love Cleave's work.
I have the King e-book if you want to borrow it, Charlene. How can I tell if it is lendable?
I have something by Sabatini, probably recommended by you, Chris! : )I also read a short story last night by Sandy Deluca. I really enjoyed it. Has anyone here read any of her stuff and if so, did you like it?
Charlene wrote: "I hope so. : )I started Blake Crouch's Abandon last night, and then didn't feel like reading it today.
So I started SW instead. It wasn't like Abandon was bad or anything, just not grabbing me at..."
Lots of times. I used to force myself to push through, but don't do so nearly as often these days.
Like a lot of people I've bumped into, I didn't find the first 50 pages of The Shining all that good, and had to force my way through to maybe page 51 or 52 before I started to not just like but love it. And most any James Michener starts off with 100 dull pages about a place's primeval history down to the peculiarities in the composition of its rocks.
I found the beginning of Gifune's Heretics a little wan and scrambled, maybe a bit precious in parts, with its harping on the girl who is just oh so very very "it." I'm enjoying it now, though. But it's not the kind of book I feel compelled to pick up every day.
I found Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness" began with so many directionless, tedious details about the ship in the harbor that several attempts haven't been sufficient to get me more than half a dozen pages into it.
Chris wrote: "Oh yeah. Sometimes I am not in the mood for a particular book but if I put it aside for a bit, I really enjoy it later. I also get burned out on one genre and need to read something entirely diff..."I don't know Sabatini, but the other two would make excellent "pacers."
I like to own a good number of short story collections, sometimes essay collections, and use those to pace myself between longer, more dour, or more serious works.
Try Sabatini's "Captain Blood" or "Scaramouche." Just don't ask Scaramouche to do the fandango.
Chris wrote: "Try Sabatini's "Captain Blood" or "Scaramouche." Just don't Scaramouche to do the fandango."Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening.
Scaramouche! That's the one I have. See? You probably did recommend it! LOLRegarding the new SK, thank you Chris, but I think I will pass on this one.
However, you can tell if it's loanable by 1)Look it up on Amazon-if the yellow banner across the top says "Loan this book", then it's loanable, (if it just says you purchased this book on 00/00/00),then it's not, or 2) also on the book page at Amazon scroll down to the pub. info and it will say if lending is enabled or not, or 3) check on your Manage My Kindle page, by clicking on the action button to the right of the book.
Oh Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia! Mamma Mia let me go!
Leaving the Beelzebub line for Jon. How appropriate. Although he probably has a devil put aside for all of us....
The bathroom is down the hall on the left, Charlene.
HA!He didn't take the opportunity, Chris! Do you believe it? LOL
I wouldn't repeat a line from a Queen song at gunpoint.
I always pictured you more as a Cyndi Lauper guy.
You need to cut back on your medication.My mom is a Cyndi Lauper fan.
I'm in the Rob Zombie camp.
Rob Zombie doing a Cyndi Lauper cover, I could get behind.
Actually, I think that could be good!Marilyn Manson did a good cover of the Eurythmics, so anything is possible.
Cyndi does have a beautiful voice-even though I'm not much of a pop music type of a gal.
I always thought Manson should to a covers album with all love songs. While not exactly a love song, I would love for him to do What's New Pussycat. Manson covering a love song would make it sound like he's a creepy stalker. When you think about it in that context, most love songs could be about stalking.
Manson's Carly Simon cover is pretty fantastic.
There's a guy named Richard Cheese (get it? GET IT???) who does covers of all genres of songs, retooling them into a lounge-singer style. Some are really fun, like his remake of "Get Down with the Sickness," which some may remember from the end credits of Dawn of the Dead (the second to last one, with Marcellus Wallace playing the cop(I never remember that guy's name)). Pat Boone also put out an album of heavy metal covers. A few others have been trying that sort of thing lately, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.
There is a sort of satanic rendering of "What a Wonderful World" that I saw laid over the Louis Armstrong version.
I think Manson should do a Christmas album. I would love to hear his take on "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas."
The Beatles "Run For Your Life" is about a homicidal stalking ex boyfriend.
Just started "Benjamin's Parasite.". Just a few chapters in and I am hooked.
Marc, I will have to look up Mr. Cheese. I love "Get Down with the Sickness", it's an awesome tune. I just can't hear it in my head as a lounge song.Remember when Shatner did those lounge-y songs? His version of Rocket Man? LMAO
I do think a Manson version of a love song would be freaky and creepy.
Charlene wrote: "Marc, I will have to look up Mr. Cheese. I love "Get Down with the Sickness", it's an awesome tune. I just can't hear it in my head as a lounge song.Remember when Shatner did those lounge-y songs..."
Shatner's Rocket Man was gold, pure gold.
The Cheese version of "Down with the Sickness" was really fun. Relentlessly upbeat! Still, there was some odd kind of darkness even in that -- like a wild, cheerful, let's-just-go-with-it surrender to darkness. I bought the MP3 on Amazon.
Anyone who hasn't heard the single (not by Cheese), Re: Your Brains, about office zombies, is hugely missing out. Also on Amazon as an MP3.
Maybe even a more necessary purchase than Ceelo's "F* You." (where F* does not stand for "forget")
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