What book are you currently reading?

Blasphemy!

 

The Reaper by Nicholas Irving. For some reason, I find books about people who are way more high speed and skilled than I'll ever be incredibly interesting.

 

Currently reading Len Deighton's Hook, Line and Sinker trilogy. Deighton always manages to make espionage seem so mundane.

 

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin

http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/last-words-from-montmartre/

 

I've been stuck on Glenn Cook's Black Company: The White Rose for about 2 months...maybe I should just accept that I don't like it.

The first book was kinda ok, the second was great, this one is dull and just more of the same stuff.

I think I also have to accept that most fantasy is utter garbage. I love the idea of it all...but finding someone who can write a half decent yarn is another thing.

 

I'm going through the Belgariad by David Eddings currently on book three Magician's Gambit. I'm enjoying the adventure reminds me a little of Raymond E Feist's style with a LOTR style story. My one major gripe with the story so far is that the protagonists seem to be invincible, Gandalf and his daughter seem to be untouchable they have a super spy, a crazy brave knight who laughs while charging into 100s of enemies and a boy who is basically Neo. I'm hoping they face a real challenge soon.

 

The real problem is that they seem to have limitless abilities but don't use them half the time.

 

Buddhism by The Dalai Lama and Thrubten Chodron
The Power of Focus
Stop Saying You're Fine
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage

 

The Belgariad was pretty formulaic but its one of the earliest non Tolkien fantasy books I read so I still enjoy it. The Elenium series was better in my opinion.

 

The power of focus is a self-help book right? I had read in the past "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" but I didn't find it very helpful..
Do you find this one useful?

Also how do you find Murakami's book? I have read almost any novel he has written except of this one, 1Q84 and the classic Dance, Dance, Dance. From what I have heard his last two books aren't that good..

 

I haven't had a chance to get right into it yet. But I'll let you know when I do. Stop Saying You're Fine has been immensely helpful though.

While it's not his best work, I think that it is a good read. It's not really a typical Murakami book if there ever was one. It's more real, rather than surreal. It's not a big read like some of his other novels so I would just say give it a read and see for your self.

 

Was over in Turkey on Holiday and grabbed a few books I been meaning to read but not got round to. Here is a couple of them.

Let the right one in – I watched the Swedish movie recommended to me by Bozza and was thoroughly impressed. Bozza then recommended I read the book to fill in the blanks. Firstly I have to say the book is very well written and the locations and atmosphere fit the scenes perfectly. The first 70% of the book is excellent and it does give you the back story to Hakan who is a very important character in the book and some more insight into the life of Eli and the drunks. At the back end of the book though things begin to get even darker and shocking in some instances particularly the scenes involving Hakan. I was a little taken aback by some of the subject matter later in the book and disappointed by a revelation pertaining to Eli. All in all it was a well written book but for the first time I think I preferred the movie version. Based on that I couldn’t recommend this book, it does fill in the blanks however there is a price to pay for reading it.

Do androids dream of electric sheep This has been sitting in my Kindles archive for about a year or so and thought it was time to read it. This book was the precursor the exceptional movie Blade Runner, arguably my favourite move of all time and certainly in my top 5. Written in 1967 the world view portrayed in the book was and still is way ahead of its time. A bounty hunter has dreams of owning an animal. Since the ash fro world war terminus almost all animals are dead and the few living ones command astronomical prices. For a month’s wages one could maybe afford an insect or a mouse. The bounty hunter (Deckard) is his name can’t afford a real animal and so has a mimic of a real animal, that animal being the electric sheep. You have to care for these electric animals in the same way you would a real animal however in order to elevate your social status you need a real animal. Deckard get handed a job to retire (Kill) 6 androids that have escaped Mars. Androids are used as servants in the future however the technology that created the electric animals is also used to make the androids therefore the androids have feelings and can feel pain and taste etc. These androids have escaped their masters on Mars although your never really told how they escaped but it is hinted that they slayed their owners. If Deckard gets all six in the one day he’ll be able to afford his very own real goat.

The writing in the book is very simplistic and combat scenes are delivered at a juvenile level, it's quite common for a combat scene to read “Deckard fired his .33 and the bullet hit john in the chest and he fell down dead” end of scene. What the book does do well however is ask the question “does synthetic life deserve equality?” if it feels and bleeds is it not human? The protagonist of the piece also experiences these emotions.

A good book not very well written but still ahead of its time and well worth a read but again the film adaptation is better. You never read a book and say the film was better in all your life and suddenly two come along at once.

Baza

 

The Issue at hand
essay on Buddhist Mindfulness Practice
By Gil Fronsdal


Tai Chi Chuan In The History of Chinese Martial Arts
By Martin Boedicker

 

I'm reading Baptism of Fire, the latest Witcher translation.

 

Finished Baptism of Fire, as with all the Witcher books slow to start and quick to end. Now reading Half a War by Joe Abercrombie, definitely not slow to start.

 

Currently having a read of Jerusalem: the Biography, neat book, pretty much explains how even in the modern age it's still the capital of the world, so to speak.

 

Heresy!

His prose isn't literary art in the accepted sense; it belies his pulp fiction background. But the film isn't better, it's just different.

It doesn't come close to capturing some of the higher concepts of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - both the sense of foreboding paranoia and one of the most affecting bits of literature I've ever read: the Mercer machine.

Don't get me wrong, the film is great. Seeing a reinterpretation of the cityscapes of Fritz Lang mixed with the conceptual style of Jean Giraud. Also historically and culturally as being the absolute pinnacle of celluloid effects before the emergence of modern digital methods. But, it only contains a handful of the concepts present in the novel - which it had to, as the novel as it is would not work as a film.