Last week we discussed quitting books, this week lets talk about books we finished that we wish we hadn’t, and in particular ones that everyone (or a lot of others) really like. I know I’ve mentioned Moby Dick before, a truly horrible book that gets plenty of praise, classic my arse. The there’s Gravity’s Rainbow, which might not qualify as a lot of people agree that it’s unreadable, but it is still included in many a ‘must read’ list. Another book that I forced myself to finish and thought was crap is also one often recommended highly on this very site, you people are wrong – Gridlinked isn’t any good, So Glibberinos, what book can’t you stand that other seem to like? Work on this entry level Glibcrostic and tell us in the comments, or don’t – you people are grown-ups and can make your own decisions.
Short puzzle today, no free googles and no Orca related clues/answers, I will give you a little hint – I don’t know the source of this quote so the attribution is only the name of the person quoted.
Reminder: The last Sunday of each month is “What Are We Reading” Day so if you want to participate get your reports in to HeyBuddyStopDoingThat@protonmail.com by the second to last Sunday.
The LOTR series. I tried but I just couldn’t make it work. I find it odd because I really like Norse mythology and the Sagas.
I will give a thumbs up for “Bored of the Ring” though.
I didn’t make it past about a few pages of The Hobbit, and I too like sagas.
I didn’t make it past page 50 of Outlander. It just wasn’t catching me. Also, I don’t care much for time-travel stories. The story’s time travel mechanics have to pique my interest first.
I liked LOTR much, much more than I did The Hobbit, fwiw.
Aside from Game of Thrones, and Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind, I’ve mercifully forgotten most of the books I didn’t like. Atlas Shrugged is borderline; I now find it all but unreadable, but I devoured it in high school and college.
Yeah, I devoured Atlas Shrugged, but once was enough. By contrast, I’ve read The Fountainhead twice and am thinking about doing a re-read. It’s the prototype Atlas Shrugged, but it’s actually the better book, not the least because there isn’t a 63-page monologue to slog through.
I have an interpretation of The Fountainhead that would make Rand’s head explode, but cast Howard Roark as a Christ figure (specifically, not a generalized messianic figure) because he covered someone else’s behind (Peter’s) for no other reason than that he could, with no expectation of return or gratitude. He gave his time and work away, which is antithetical to objectivism. (Yes, I know. It could be argued that he did exactly what he wanted to, so it was still self-interested.) Furthermore, Roark didn’t pay his rent for MONTHS and his landlord just went, “Oh, okay, no problem,” so he was living off someone else’s largesse.
OMG I got flamed big-time in an objectivist forum for suggesting such. I’ve been thinking on Roark as Christ for a long time, although I’ve never actually written a decent essay on the subject. I’d have to read it again to pull quotes and scenes to do it right.
*[Also, that having children (and treating them kindly and responsibly) is the least objectivist thing you could possibly do.]
Rand preferred to characterize her heroes as classical romantic figures, but they’re all Christ figures of a sort, except for Kira Argounova. FFS, John Galt is about to sacrifice himself for his friends and his values at the conclusion of Atlas Shrugged and is only stopped from doing so when his disciples, in a complete repudiation of his values, stage a daring rescue (which, of course, isn’t *really* a repudiation of his values, because they didn’t rescue him in an act of self-sacrifice, but because they valued their devotion to his cause more than their own lives, unlike those silly altruistic religionists).
I love all of Tolkein’s stuff; then again, I like Frank Herbert too.
I’ve finished Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and I’ll admit, I can certainly understand why people would give up on it; but once you get into (or passed) Nietzsche’s style, he gives you a lot to chew on. I do want to read at least a couple more of his works – after a break.
I liked Tom Clancy’s first few books, but The Sum of All Fears killed it for me and I’ve never touched another.
That was my first and last, too.
After that, I decided Id wait for the movie
I read all of Tom Clancy’s stuff while I was in middle and high school – looking back, that was the right time period.
Same here. I tried one after high school and it was a no go.
Red Storm Rising is a lot of fun. I might actually re-read it after I finish Number of the Beast.
In keeping with TH comment about “important books” (but it is still included in many a ‘must read’ list), for me, Seth’s “The Golden Gate” was a slog not worth it. I also thought “Things Fall Apart” was meh, although I get why it is/was important.
I got about third in and still haven’t finished it years later, but have always loved the title.
Things Fall Apart, that is.
That book is crap. I was forced to read it once in Jr Hogh and again in HS
5 minutes 56 seconds. The two one-lettter words in the quote threw me off for a bit.
I slogged through all 10,000 or so pages of The Stand, which started good but then went completely to shit. Also, I read all of Pet Sematary and it was garbage. I’ve never even considered reading a King book since those two.
I enjoyed Gridlinked but I’ve enjoyed Asher’s other books more.
I think the Polity series gets better as it goes – I’m about half-way through Polity Agent right now. The only other of his I’ve read was The Skinner. TBH: I’d forgotten he’d written that. If I’d remembered I probably wouldn’t have picked up Gridlinked because The Skinner was, to me, meh.
Gridlinked isn’t great, but sets the stage for some great, later books.
The Stand is one of his better books, so yeah–might as well stay away.
I agree Pet Sematary is shit. Try his short stories–they’re better than the novels.
After reading a few of King’s tweets, I will live out the rest of my life without a nickel of my money ever reaching his pocket.
Pretty sure I’ve never even seen a movie based on his drivel.
Fuck that guy.
Ha I read most of his stuff long before Twitter arrived to ruin everything.
I knew he was a flaming liberal but not that he was an r-tard.
The Shining.
Nailed it. My first.
Rereading Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Foundation series as an adult, I thought both were not as great as I remembered.
Lots of pulp level I’ve given up on, mostly series. Sanford, Jordan, Goodkind, Elizabeth Peters.
“I thought both were not as great as I remembered.”
I re-read an Asimov short story collection I lived as a teen and had the same reaction.
I’m pretty sure that John Sanford is just outsourcing his IP to other writers at this point. The last straw for me was about when Letty started being a focus character.
I have recently re-read several Heinlein books, none of which were as enjoyable as I remembered.
Moon is a harsh read. Nowhere near as bad as Time Enough For Love. That was awful.
I read Kim Stanley Robinson entire Mars Trilogy out of stubbornness. Haven’t been tempted to pick up a book he’s written since.
Maybe for next week: books you reread?
How did you get into my “Glibbooks ideas” file?
I’m usually not a fan of fiction but one of the Glibs sent me a Civil War fiction that I’ll be starting soon. A quick glance and it looks like the real thing.
Historical fiction can be amazing. Enjoy!
If it’s the Killer Angel’s, its damn good.
Oh yeah, Mostly Harmless was total shit and ruined the Hitchhiker’s series even more than So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.
It was indeed shit and I regret reading it.
Without enacting my own labor and researching, did Adams write “So Long….” entirely? Or did he die and it was finished posthumously?
All him, as was ‘Mostly Harmless’.
Interestingly, on the latter:
It is indeed bleak.
He wrote everything through Mostly Harmless. The sixth book, “And Another Thing…” was partly based on Adams’ notes.
I read Hitchhiker’s Guide to XY when he was too young to get it (which I just misjudged; he was happy to have reading time with mom). He just recently re-read it and got it and enjoyed it. I didn’t appreciate the humor enough to continue on with the series, although I do have it.
As with LOTR, do NOT watch the BBC Hitchiker’s Guide or the shitty movie they tried to make out of it. Ruins the entire brand.
SLD- I can however, appreciate LOTR just for the effects.
I never read past the first one, and probably won’t now.
The first Dirk Gently was funny. Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul was not good. Never read the third one.
Probably not a popular opinion around here but I don’t like the original.
Somehow I made myself watch that shitty movie – the humor was the horrible miscasting of every character, right?
“Could be a seafood restaurant, could be a Strip Club”
Joes Crab Shack?
Snappers?
Salmon- the other pink meat.
As a kid I loved Hitchhiker’s guide and LOTR as an adult….I HATE them…
😲 (re: Hitchhiker’s)
Ah, memory, thou cruel mistress. Another book that seems much loved that I hated was Dan Simmons’s Hyperion. I even gave it a re-read a couple decades or so later (i.e., recently) and still quite disliked it. Likewise for Snowcrash and Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson. Blech.
This makes me haz a sad.
De gustibus and all that. But he’s an author another of whose works I shall not bother to read.
I like Hyperion, a lot; haven’t read it in quite awhile, though. Unfortunately, the series declines (especially the final book, IMO).
Haven’t read LOTR in decades. I see no reason to; my memories of it are very positive, and I see no reason to put that at risk.
This topic really shows “De gustibus . . . .” is a timeless truth.
I got partway into the first book of Game of Thrones, BTW, set it down, and never picked it up again. Which is unusual for me, but there it is.
I’ve read Hyperion twice and while it didn’t make any more sense the second time around I still enjoy it. I *think* I enjoyed the other three but I don’t remember them too well.
As for Neal Stephenson… I love the books you named and here comes another unpopular opinion: Cryptonomicon bored me to fucking tears. It is my “book that I finished and wished I hadn’t”.
The Fall of Hyperion explains pretty much everything that was a mystery in the first book. I enjoyed it, but maybe because I enjoyed it so much I have not gone on to read the next two for fear they’ll fuck things up.
Game of Thrones was deadly dull. Made it about 100 pages, if that.
Funny, I devoured the first couple books but started to get annoyed with the third, angered by the fourth and aggravated into indifference by the fifth. I’ve no interest in ever finishing the series.
I’ve no interest in ever finishing the series.
Neither does George.
Same. Exact. Experience.
I think the underlying issue is that GRRM is a passable world builder but a shit storyteller.
The Haviland Tuff stories, collected in Tuff Voyaging, were good. He wasn’t always useless, but…
I think that critiques is valid, at a point. He burned out somewhere along the road but the money kept printing, so….
Ditto.
Except I didn’t make it to Five.
That shit with “splitting the action” IIRC, pissed me off.
Right there with you. Burned out at 4.
I still want to know the answer to the question “where do whores go?”
Who would like to meet Chadwick the Chihuahua?
https://ibb.co/zX3ST5K
I’m glad you got a furry friend, although I’m sad for you no pugs were available.
Yay! Cutie-pie 😉
Huzzah!
In my experience, Chee-hooa-hooa (respect to Les Nessman) are ill-tempered little fucks, that think they’re doberman just by being born here.
RELEVANT!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ototMJ5JJyU
*raises hand*
Congrats, KK! He’s a handsome boy!
Any idea of age?
He’s 3 apparently
SQUEEEEEEEE! A little black doggie! (Should I send you a bottle of my favorite [admittedly sissy] wine?)
Would love that except I can’t drink wine 🙁
In all seriousness, congrats. I hope Chadwick is a charming Zoom partner.
Yay! Knew it.
Atlas, three decades ago, up to page 100ish.
Awwww!
AAAAAAAAAAUUUUWWWWAAAAAUUUGH!
So cute. Both of you. 💕🌺🌺
You can’t fool us. That’s a black fox, a trickster.
Super cute, and the fox ain’t bad, either.
Enjoy him. He’s just the right size for his new home.
I read How To Win Friends And Influence People in college. If you’ve been alive since about 2 weeks after it was first published it’s utterly superfluous, which I guess is a testament to its influence, but it was an even bigger waste of time than my coursework.
I read half of the Narnia series when I was a kid after we read The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in first grade. I found the rest of the series painfully boring, but even then I wasn’t really into the fantasy genre. As an adult I’ve read some of Lewis’ “classics” of apologetics, and I think he’s completely overrated in that sphere as well. The fact that he’s considered an intellectual giant of modern Christianity actually makes me think less of Christians. Accepting the inherent anti-intellectualism of supernaturalism has always been a struggle for me as a would-be Christian anyway though.
Speaking of spheres, when I was probably around 13, I found a paperback copy of Michael Crichton’s Sphere in a box in my dad’s office. I asked him if it was any good. He told me “I hated the ending so much that I threw the book on the ground and spit on it.” I figured, “the old man’s a fucking crank, it’s probably good.” He was right.
Yeah, Sphere’s almost as bad as Congo.
Funny, Lewis lowered my already low esteem for Christian apologetics also.
Accepting the inherent anti-intellectualism of supernaturalism has always been a struggle for me as a would-be Christian anyway though.
You could torture yourself with Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. Probably wouldn’t move the needle any.
I intend to. I downloaded it probably 15 years ago and still haven’t gotten past the first couple of questions of Part I. I would like to delve much further into Kierkegaard as well. I’ve only ever read the babby’s first Kierkegaard compilation Provocations.
Oddly, I’m more empathetic to the Augustinian view than the Thomist.
Being protestant with an Arminian bent, I suspect it will be likewise for me. Having already read Augustine, probably all the more so.
Read the whole Harry Potter series that was published at the time (books 1-5?) and enjoyed them. Read 6 when it came out. Tried to read 7, but I was utterly uninterested by then. Also, I was in my early 30s when I started reading them.
Her writing style had evolved significantly by book 5. That could have been part of it.
Oof, good example. An ex-girlfriend bought me the first five Potter books. I read them mostly to be polite, and they weren’t horrible, but I was desperately looking for any glimmer of hard fantasy/ToM and just not finding it. I won’t say they were a waste of time, because I read them during the downtime at a SHOT Show where I was stuck in an old off-strip hotel with no free WiFi. But this was an extreme case.
Moj, thank you for not saying ‘disinterested’.
You’re welcome, although “disinterested” doesn’t bother me the way “utilize” and “orientate” do.
Never got into Harry Potter. The books, to me, were obviously written for tweens, and I was not one when I picked up the first book. I never bothered with the movies because of how uninterestingly cliche the first book was to me.
You should watch the movies for Alan Rickman’s performances.
Indeed. I found it interesting when, after his death (IIRC) Rowling revealed she’d fed him “spoilers” regarding his character from as yet unpublished volumes so he’d be aware of them as he approached his performance. (Which is even more interesting if, in fact, the directors of those earlier films didn’t have that information.)
No romance reader in the world needed that spoiler the second it was revealed Snape was in love with Lily.
Another fun urban legend: A fan asked her about it long before the reveal, and Rowling was shocked and dismayed that it was that obvious to her.
R+L=J!
The first book is like her practice piece. It gets better.
And although I tapped out after five or six movies, some of the mid ones are actually very good.
The second book is an almost direct rewrite of the first.
The third she decided that she had (and had a publisher for) a series.
Book 4 is when the page count exploded, and since her idea of when puberty hits are a bit different than mine, book 5 is when the protagonist becomes a whiny emo adolescent, book six is when he’s full-on “adults don’t understand anything” and book seven is when you have an independently wealth seventeen your old making the kind of decisions you’d expect.
In middle school the “Nick Carter: Killmaster” series was all the rage with me and my friends. Nick was the Aldi version of James Bond. Kinda like Koontz : King.
I wonder how they would read now as a *cough* adult.
OMG, anyone else remember the Doc Savage books?
Meant to be a reply to Tres. Threading, how does it work again? Sigh 😉
I have a few of those.
I reread a bunch of Doc Savage about ten years ago, while I was designing the AV for a museum of comic book pop culture. It was terrible, but earnest and enjoyable terrible, like most old comic book properties.
My son devoured those in the third grade. I remind him now just to embarrass him.
I was given an entire Lovecraft compendium. After about four stories I realized it was the same thing over and over again and it really was not that good. There. I said it.
I agree with everyone here about the Foundation series. Just cannot read it.
Don’t you just love how he presents some ‘indescribable horror’ or abomination which he then goes on for pages to describe?
Someone should print a Lovecraft cookbook and call it the NecroNomNomNomicon.
Or is that just a repackaging of Lilek’s delightful Gallery of Regrettable Food?
Yes, it’s just endless. PAGE after PAGE. Some people seem to eat it up. I just don’t get it.
it was the same thing over and over again
I’m intermittently reading a collection of August Derleth “Cthulhu” stories. The first section is almost literally the same story repeated . And the most annoying thing is, in each story, he lists the same collection of ancient and mystical writings, which includes a collection of Lovecraft stories that Derleth’s Arkham House had just published. It turns the story into a crass advertisement (which, in fairness, Arkham House may well have needed), but it ruins any immersion in the story.
Lovecraft wasn’t as good as Howard. Neither were as good as Clark Ashton Smith.
Books that make me feel inadequate for not finishing: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter series (sorta,) Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Book I wanted to like based solely on what I, at first, thought was a reasonably clever title: Gilligan’s Wake. The summation at the top of the linked review is pretty spot on. My impression was that it was much more preoccupied with cramming in as many pop culture references as the writer could think of than with, you know, telling a story. It didn’t help, I’m sure, that I’m not a James Joyce fan. I think I plodded my way through Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for a Lit class in college, then promptly purged any memory of it from my brain. This supposed homage to Joyce was much worse.
FINNEGAN. Not Gilligan.
You DID click the link, right?
ALOL
Sigh. I will put on the funny hat and sit facing the corner…
Jean Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear was… OK, bearing in mind that what we thought we knew about the Neandertal when she wrote that work proved to be inaccurate, but that’s science for you. I’ve read that first book a couple of times.
But after that – Hay-sus Marimba, did she ever go down a weird road. Stone-Age romance novels, a guy who lives in a howling Ice Age wilderness walking across a continent looking for his “one true love,” and sex, sex, sex! I read Valley of Horses, then started The Mammoth Hunters, hoping it would get better. It got worse. I gave up. I didn’t even try any of the others.
It wasn’t just the romance-novel aspect, it’s that this one woman, in addition to her prowess in the furs, also domesticated dogs and horses, tamed a cave lion (!), helped invent the spear-thrower, discovered starting a fire with iron pyrite and flint, and I think she made a fusion reactor from some willow bark and a mammoth tusk. There apparently is no limit as to how silly Jean Auel would get.
Oh, and I’ve powered my way through Moby Dick a couple of times. It’s supposed to be a great piece of classic literature, but a whole lot of it is just plain tedious.
I enjoy the sailing and whaling portions of MD. He was writing for an audience that knew and lived those industries so he spent effort in getting them right. The philosophizing portions I now skip over.
So Jean Auel created Stone Age MacGyver?
Pretty much, yeah.
I’m not reading anything. I’m studying my course and doing things with my hands (SHUT! UP!). I have lots of TV shows and movies to watch, and I can’t a) read and watch TV at the same time or b) read and cross stitch/crochet at the same time or c) watch TV without doing anything else constructive or d) cross stitch/crochet without having something playing.
I read one book by China Miéville, and it was horrible. Don’t remember which one it was, but I avoid him like the plague.
I liked Perdido Street Station, The City & The City, and to a lesser extent, Kraken. Didn’t finish Railsea.
Other authors I like most of their work: Dave Eggers, Michael Lewis, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Safron Foer, although Foer can be quite pretentious. I loved Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and then someone went and made a horrendous movie based on the book.
If I haven’t recommended it already, The Undoing Project is one my favorite books.
I tried to read The Census Taker made it about fifty pages, it wasn’t any good and I haven’t given any of his/hers other works a chance.
Midway through O’Brian’s Master and Commander series.
No regrets.
So, I read a scathing 1* review of my pirate book. It was hilarious. But that same reviewer gave Master & Commander a scathing 1* review and I have never felt so complimented.
I enjoyed the first few, but it become a slog after a while.
Stranger in a Strange Land is good for the first half. Jubal is smart. VMS has these otherworldly magical abilities yet in the end he just runs a degenerate sex cult.
Isn’t that always the way?
+1 long pig.
Should have come through Mexico?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/18/biden-administration-russia-deportations
Seems to me that Russians have a more valid claim of asylum than most coming over the southern border, especially young men who don’t want to be drafted.
But not a lobbying base for Team Blue votes and Team Red labor.
Some of the ones in the article did come through Mexico.
Maybe they should say they are handy with a hammer or mention their landscaping skills.
Majority of 40+ year old people are wondering “why didn’t may parents accepts I was [insert outside group here]?”
“Gump and Co.”, the sequel to “Forrest Gump”, was a book I tried to read. I never read the original novel, but had seen the movie and thought the sequel could be interesting. Dear lord, it was awful. It made me wonder if the original novel was just as bad, but they were able to make a movie out of it.
In the early 1900s, a few authors were coalescing around the idea that murder mysteries needed “rules” so that the reader had a fighting chance to solve the crime before the denouement.
Agatha Christie was one of the founders of that unofficial movement, as was a less well known American, John Dickson Carr. Carr was an Anglophile and lived most of his life in Britain, including WW2 during which he refused to go to the relative safety of the US. Carr also wrote under the name “Carter Dickson” for some of his lower-quality dimestore novels, which I still read anyway. Carr is the undisputed master of The Locked Room Mystery, and one of his novels includes a chapter in the form of an oratory on the subject given by the master detective. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dickson_Carr
(Carr’s “The Hollow Man” is still considered the best of the best of locked room mysteries)
John Dickson Carr’s best novel is perhaps “The Burning Court” which involves mystery, murder, witchcraft, and superstition. Loved that book.
His other of my top two is “The Devil in Velvet”. That book also has a bit of superstition and time travel, but it doesn’t have to trip on its own rules with time travel. The narrator literally makes a deal with the Devil so that he can go back in time, to English civil war times. Good fun.
Like Christie, Carr is not a super strong character writer. His heroes and heroines are very much a part of the times. But to me that adds to the fun. If you’re looking for some fun brain candy, load up a Kindle with Carr and head to the beach!!
I love Boris Karloff as Col March!
I personally love mysteries where the reader has a chance to beat the detective to the solution. I get that keeping the red herrings in play does make it harder to get to know the characters properly.
It’s also really hard to write one of these. Believe me, I’m trying.
Agatha Christie was one of the founders of that unofficial movement
Really? Because the screen adaptations of her books are completely of the “ass-pull the villain in the final episode” variety.
I’m lookin’ at you Murder On the orient Express, the ABC Murders, and… well all of the rest. You could theoretically claim that it would have been possible to suss out the ending of And Then There were None,
At least with Charlie Chan you knew that the minor character you didn’t care much about one way or another was the bad guy.
One – The movie adaptations are, well, movie adaptations.
Two – Orient Express was pretty much the worst example of her work. I was disappointed by the twist, because it felt like cheating.
Three – I’ve read way too many of her books to be objective, and I managed to work out the formula behind the ones that were more churned out than crafted.
You’re welcome, although “disinterested” doesn’t bother me the way “utilize” and “orientate” do.
Is this related in some way to your competency?
“Disinterested” has an actual, distinct, technical meaning in the world of conflict of interests (note: not conflicts of interest, although that’s a common usage). “Uninterested” is the right word for “didn’t hold my interest”. “Disinterested” is the right word for “the author doesn’t owe me money”.
Disinterested is what a journalist is. We only have propagandists though.
In the nonfiction realm (cause that’s how I roll), I didn’t like The Cuckoo’s Egg. It could have been a compelling story if it were written by an actual author instead if the IT nerd involved in the events.
I have my autographed copy of it somewhere. In storage probably. I didn’t like his Silicon Snake Oil when it came out but came around to the general theme (as I recall it) and then the internet went from mainstream to ubiquitous.
GOT. I gave up after book four. And WOT would have counted, until Brandon Sanderson picked up the last couple of books and finished to a reasonable conclusion.
Read and enjoyed Clive Cussler’s stuff, then read one where they find a train hidden in a long lost Hudson River tunnel. Pretty improbable. Tried a few after that and found I no longer cared about Dirk and his NUMA team.
Yep. Early books were great. A museum with a bunch of his cars is about a block away from me. I need to go take a peek.
I actually really liked Moby Dick, found it to be quite fun and very meaningful. Fuck Pynchon with a rubber hose though. I like Crying of Lot 49, but Gravities Rainbow is just pot humor, and I hate pot humor. And everything else I have tried to read by him written post GR has just. been. pot. humor. V wasn’t bad though.
Harry Potter. I was managing a bookstore when they came out, finished the first book because I try to read all the big books back then to talk to the customers about them. Found it crap, and refused to touch the others. And I would tell customers i found it crap.
“So anyway, that’s why I no longer manage a book store.”
lol
Twu, so twu.
Was definitely given a very stern warning from a manager for having been honest about a product. I hated that. I always felt like if I weren’t honest, and the customer found out himself the hard way, he’d be less likely to come back to me when he needed more dice gear.
Vertigo and Rear Window are on. My Sunday is set.
In the slightly different category, I’ve got a whole library of books I’ve never finished or ones I meant to read but never did.
Yeah, I’ve got probably a couple dozen unread books on my Kindle. In my defense, some of them are series that I’m letting complete before I get started (or keep going).
At any given time I tend to have at least a half dozen unread books in my Downloads directory, which upon reading will either be discarded if I didn’t like them, or moved to my library if I did. Eventually the backlog bothers me enough to binge-read for a few days to clear it out (which I’m actually doing as we speak with J. Gresham Machen), which typically resolves nothing as I’ll end up acquiring another half dozen books that were referred therein, and the whole process starts anew.
They always made us read those Newberry Award winning books in school, and they were all shit. That fucking Stich in Time was the worst and the Giver was the one that I hated the least, but I still hated it.
As for books I chose to read on my own, The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson was bland and boring, something I did not expect.
His assistant has been quoted as saying that he only finalized and released it – 30 odd years after it was written – because he was broke and needed the money.
Johnny Tremain, Rifles for Watie, The High King… Wrong.
I remember loving Johnny Tremaine. I wonder how I’d find it as an adult.
“…Stich in Time was the worst and the Giver was the one that I hated the least…”
Backwards from me.
I loved A Wrinkle in Time.
#metoo
The movie is hot garbage.
Yes.
I didn’t know there was one.
There are multiple. None are any good.
School forced the worst books on the students to bludgeon any interest in reading out of them, that’s why they push the newberry award winners.
The difference between the current winners and previous ones is stunning. Contrast The Door in the Wall with New Kid. And Newberry committee: your prize is supposed to be for the written word. Picture books are Caldecott territory.
I remember the Reading Rainbow for Maniac Magee. Never read it though.
The High King!
I mean, OMG
https://ibb.co/8N0HFSF
Awwwwwwww!!! He’s going to wrap you around his little paw 😉
Yo quiero Taco Bell
“Am I in my forever home or am I tonight’s main entree?”
You know, you could probably crop that down to a pretty cute avatar.
Just sayin’.
Who would want to use an animal photo as an avatar?
A bunch of sickos and weirdos, that’s who.
Looks like she already did.
Love.
You should do a DNA test. So fun!
Are kids (or adults, for that matter) ready to eat insects?
No.
Next question.
Yeah. Fuck off already.
“They” sure are pushing this.
Well of course frogs are open to eating insects.
Whereas raising insects on a global scale is simply a matter of gathering them out of the air with a net I guess.
There are plenty of reasons to hoist the black flag these days but for some reason this one puts my blood at an instant boil.
Someone who thinks they can shove their religious cant down my throat will find their own slit open.
I think that’s whats so enraging about it. It takes a special kind of hubris to decide for all humanity that we’ll just change 10,000 years of dietary habit and the civilization that grew out of it based on some wannabe central planners half-baked notion. Slit throats indeed.
It’s all this.
They reject human nature in all its manifestations.
Anti-humans.
See That Hideous Strength
It’s not so much practicality as it is abasement…they want to humiliate you by making you eat something you don’t want to put in your body-once you can force people to do that you can force them to do anything.
Do sea insects (i.e. lobsters) count?
Poor people food that have slowly been made to be a delicate meal.
Conversely a lot of cuts and dishes that used to be quite common are rare or low class.
When I visited Sonora in 2005 I was surprised to learn that cuts like ribeye are relatively cheap compared to what we consider beef byproducts. Spanish colonization made the prime cuts inaccessible for the peons and the cuisine developed accordingly.
“I never ate a bug that big before.”
-Steven McQueen in Tom Horn
One of the very enjoyable bits from The Fatal Shore was how the poor locals ate the fresh bounty of the sea surrounding Australia while the proper English ate salted cod shipped from the mother country.
No–sea insects are not food.
*grabs mic* ahem. Fuck off Mr Garrison *drops mic*
I swear this girl has to be a long lost relative of KK! And working on OMWC shit!
Books I hated
Things Fall Apart
The Jungle
Time Enough For Love
Pretty much anything by Spider Robinson or Kim Stanly Robinson
Didn’t hate but bored me, books with no point
Foundation Series
Ender’s Game. I read it in law school because a friend recommended it. I kept slogging through it expecting it to get better. Every now and again he would ask me how far I had gotten. Made it to the end and told him I was finished. He did not like my review.
I liked it but every other novel by that author–four or five that I read–was a regret.
Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger series was a favorite of mine in middle school.
Also read hordes of The Three Investigators books.
A.A. Atanasio’s “Radix” was a cool novel. Too bad he never wrote another. Bad things are afoot at the circle Festus.
USA abuses Cuba and fucks them raw in WBC semi-finals, 14-2.
Will play winner of Japan vs Mexico on Tuesday night.
glibs emergency beacon! (bacon?? whatever-I’ve heard it both ways)
If there is anyone willing to do a zoom now please ping me.
Im at hayeksplosives@protonmail etc
and also at 425-595-7893 for those of you who actually like talking to humans.
Just feeling a little scared now.
Our wonderful very own Glib named Double Eagle contacted me and talked me off the ledge.
So I am good!! Feel free to contact me at any of the above mentioned means and for any reason.
Take care, friends!
Mornin everyone!
Mornin’ Sean, and everyone else here.
Good morning, Shirley, Sean, and lurkers! Happy First Day of Alleged Spring – currently 24 degrees F in SW OH. And clear…which means there’ll be frost on my windshield. 😒
Morning, GT.
Good morning, U! How are you today?
I’m awake, I got mixed fruit when I went to the store this morning, and I get to work from home.
On the flip side, I have to make heads or tails of what Production Control did in the time before I came along.
Here’s hoping you don’t discover that you have to rebuild anything from scratch. 🤞🏼
A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bam-boom!
Good morning….Rudy?
Tooti Frooti on the Rooti?
Good morning early birds and night owls.
I’m a. Night owl myself so I’m signing off for.now.
Thanks ownbedtenemy for the reoffend Boris Karloff as Col. March.
WhY a voice had Boris. Swoon.
Indeed – and put to its highest and best use narrating AND voicing the title character in the original animated dramatization of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Re: upthread talking about the idiocy of Stephen King and not consuming media that earns him money.
Just like you shouldn’t cut off your nose to spite your face, you shouldn’t not watch The Shawshank Redemption to deny King a few tenths of a cent. The Shining was good too.
I enjoyed King’s memoir/how-to book On Writing, so after reading that I tried to read a couple of his early novels, but they just didn’t grab me, so I never finished them. Someone upthread opined that his short stories are better than the novels, and that’s been my experience, too. (Did not know he was connected to Shawshank.)
Based on a novella of his so I’d assume he gets some of the proceeds. Most people don’t realize that as it’s very out of character for him but it’s a damn fine flick.
Fell asleep at 7 last night and up early. Maybe I like this better. Solitude in the AM. Good morning all
Good morning, OBE! I find the early morning pre-AM Lynx regulars to be excellent company as I’m sipping my coffee and working up my nerve to face the day.
We surly, decaffinated, misanthropes?
Absolutely! Dare I say we’re all (or at least most of us) kindred spirits?
First day back from vacation. So happy. So ready to achieve.
*prepares to archive*
Thanks GT amd morning to you.
Careful folks if you have a phone with a Samsung chip:
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/critical-vulnerabilities-allow-some-android-phones-to-be-hacked/
The good news is it’s fixable, the bad news is the option that fixes it is is disabled (probably).
I like not this news, bring me different news.
The latest Pixels have an update that addresses it, the others I don’t think so-not yet at least. It’s only certain Samsung chips too but it sounds fairly serious.
My work PC has a case of the Monday’s.
🙁
Slow AF this morning.
And Firefox just crashed a couple times. Gonna be that kind of day. 🙄