Brocust
Fresh Recruit
Got a crick in me neck
Posts: 9
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Post by Brocust on Feb 23, 2017 1:27:34 GMT -5
Books, comics, manga, any and all! Here's what I got: Moby Dick: Just one of those books I feel I have to read. 100 pages in, only 1200 to go Attack on Titan: Finished up to Book 15 and stopped there until Season 2's done. I prefer to see this animated but I had to know more of the story. Well that's it, other than the occasional Junji Ito story. And on that note, if you like Ito you might want to check out Shintaro Kago. From what I've read of his he lessens the horror a little in favour of black comedy, so maybe not as creepy but it's about as strange and unsettling. NSFW warning on that though.
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Post by Zarathustra on Feb 23, 2017 3:38:29 GMT -5
I've just started reading both Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (I'm trying to read/watch all the sci-fi that influenced Tetsuya Takahashi), and the original Ghost in the Shell manga. I'm not very far in either but they're both off to a good start.
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Post by DarknessLink7 on Feb 24, 2017 8:19:52 GMT -5
I'm also reading Attack on Titan, but I sort of wish I hadn't now that the second season of the anime is approaching. The manga is great, but the anime is AMAZING! I'm also reading a humor manga called "No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys Fault I'm Not Popular" that has some of the most hilarious cringe scenes I've ever seen. I rarely laugh out loud, but this manga actually has me dying from time to time. "Choku" made by the same people is also a great humor manga.
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Post by inquisitor on Feb 24, 2017 9:26:13 GMT -5
I'm keeping up with a lot of manga right now.
Fairy Tail: Currently annoying the s*** out of me
Nanatsu no Taizai: Amazing right now
My Hero Academia: Pretty good
Those are the main ones. There's also Gintama, Noragami, UQ Holder, AoT, Dragon Ball Super, and a few others that I'm sure I'm forgetting
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Post by DarknessLink7 on Mar 17, 2017 15:54:02 GMT -5
I just finished reading the manga "Alice in Borderland" and it was one of the greatest experiences I've had. It started off kinda uninteresting, and it took a while until I got into it, but once it started to become interesting it didn't let up. It's an interesting mix of genres, and since I enjoy pretty much all of the genres it was mixing it became a real winner in my book. I'd say the main genres are "Psychological", "Action" and "Mystery". If you're a fan of gritty action scenes, pure psychological mind-games, high stakes and heartbreak, this is the manga for you. There are so many memorable scenes, clever and unexpected twists and lovable characters... And the ending was incredibly satisfying to me.
If you enjoyed the manga "Liar Game", you'll love Alice in Borderland.
The art starts off pretty average, but it gradually gets better and better. About halfway through the art becomes really awesome in my opinion. I can't recommend this series enough!
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Post by NullNoMore on Mar 30, 2017 14:04:59 GMT -5
I just finished Graveyard Apartment: A Novel, by Mariko Koike. I hadn't realized how old it was, 1986, which might explain why a little of the culture felt off for me, almost like stereotypes of a Japanese family. Now I realize they were a family pattern that was normal, if fading. I don't read a lot of horror, so the scares and creepiness felt fresh to me. Creepy. Otherwise, before bed I'm still plodding through A Tour of the Calculus, one paragraph at a time zzzzzzzz.
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Post by NullNoMore on Nov 30, 2017 16:07:08 GMT -5
Now I'm working on _It Devours_ by the Night Vale crew, Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink. Set in the world of that funny creepy podcast, but they swear you can enjoy it without knowing the series. I'm not sure if that's true, but it isn't an issue for me. It's not deep stuff, but fun and weird.
edit 12/14: It Devours!? Oh yeah, I've read that book. It does a good job of bringing the weird of the Night Vale universe, although the ending felt a little rushed/telegraphed.
edit 1/11: Slowly working my way through Uncle Tom's Cabin. Which resonates weirdly with XC2, to be honest. Harriet Beecher Stowe had OPINIONS.
edit 3/1: Stowe is done. That woman has a fine skill with sarcasm, but it was a poor choice for my brain. Do not read abolitionist literature while playing XC2 is all I can say, unless you want free floating rage.
Good news: I discovered that Gutenberg Project of Australia has different views of copyright, and I can load newer things onto my device. _To the Lighthouse_, don't mind if I do.
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Post by NullNoMore on Apr 19, 2018 15:07:32 GMT -5
Almost done with Anne of Green Gables, a book I never read as a kid. I'm enjoying the descriptions of landscapes. Lucy Montgomery liked colors, I'm telling you.
5/3: Finished that, and in a fit of pro-Canadian enthusiasm I also finished _Klee Wyck_ by Emily Carr, more landscapes (no surprise from a painter) but mostly wreathed in fog and dripping pines. I can't quite unpack how sympathy, clarity, criticism, and condescension play out in this, but it felt more honest than a lot of autobiographies.
Now, for my sins, I am reading _South!_ by Shackelton. They've just gotten trapped in the ice during their first Antarctic winter, and I'm wondering why I have picked yet another book where there is so much time spent describing landscapes. But this time so cold, so very cold. Orcas are described as evil hunters, with lizard like faces.
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Post by NullNoMore on Sept 11, 2018 14:53:25 GMT -5
_Convenience Store Woman_ is excellent. Sayaka Murata, 2016, just got translated this year. Little bit funny, little bit weird, no cannibalism (spoilers) but you know, there could have been. Short, fast read.
Now for a long, slow read. _Moby Dick_ I read it in high school lo those many years ago and remember it being tolerable. Now I'm finding it pretty funny and downright good, and I'm not skimming nearly as much I expected. But that first list of quotes, oh, that is a gauntlet that kills interest dead, and I think it means to.
While the Pequod slowly sails into disaster (and I hit a great line, "Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!" man that rolls off the tongue...), I've also picked up _Alice Isn't Dead_. It feels MUCH more gruesome to me than the podcast. I haven't finished the podcast, so I'm a little leery of spoilers. I may put it on hold until I make it through the last 8 or so episodes (I listen as slowly as I read).
edit: Yup, stopped Alice Isn't Dead, because while it is slightly different, it uses a lot of parts of the podcast I haven't heard yet. IT IS A VERY GOOD PODCAST, y'all. I don't know if it sticks the landing, but hopefully I'll finish it this vacation.
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Post by NullNoMore on Feb 5, 2019 15:48:30 GMT -5
_Alice Isn't Dead_ (by Joseph Fink) is good, both as a podcast and as a book. Very similar, so choose one or the other, and I'd give the nod to the podcast for a little more subtlety and humor, to the book as being more intensely scary.
I'm trying to read too many books at once, always a bad sign of things that will be unfinished, but I'm liking _The Devil in the White City_ (Erik Larson) now that I am resigned to parts of it being really boring lists that I can ignore. The topic switches chapter to chapter, from the Chicago's World Fair to a Chicago serial killer, back and forth, back and forth. In the end, I'm feeling like both were big deals that are now historical novelties.
(3/12) Still reading _Devil_ but I'm jumping in to say that the way Virginia Woolf switches voice in _To the Lighthouse_ would be criminal in the hands of a lesser author, like knife juggling. Not satisfied with switching every section, or even every paragraph, she just bounced from one person to the next WITHIN THE SAME SENTENCE and made me like it. The master!
"Instantly, with the force of some primeval gust (for really he could not restrain himself any longer), there issued from him such a groan that any other woman in the whole world would have done something, said something--all except myself, thought Lily, girding at herself bitterly, who am not a woman, but a peevish, ill-tempered, dried-up old maid, presumably."
But mercy it makes for a slow read, full of "wait, what?" as I re-read another very long sentence to figure out if it is one person, or another, or maybe the actual house thinking things.
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Post by NullNoMore on Mar 26, 2019 14:40:35 GMT -5
I finished The Devil in the White City, finally. At times overwhelming with details, as happens with non-fiction, but once I got the rhythm of alternating chapters (architecture/murder/architecture/murder) and embraced the power of Not Memorizing Everything, it was a fun if gruesome read. Not for bedtime, at least not every other chapter.
Now I'm reading My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (I sense a theme). It is almost a reverse romance novel. Does the handsome young doctor notice the plain but loving nurse? Will he fall for a pretty face? At about the point where I knew what would happen, nope, no, not happening quiiiiiiite that way. Close, but the differences are important. (I'm reading it while waiting for rooms to fill up. The chapters are very short.) Edit: it was good, right to the end.
Less thrilled by The Girl on the Train, which I read, then skimmed, then speed skimmed, because I didn't like anyone in that novel. NO ONE. Not even the baby. Not even the train.
So instead, let me give a qualified rec for "The Emissary" by Yoko Tawada. It's a very gentle dystopia with almost no plot and only select details. Not sure how well the puns worked in translation, and apparently I missed a shout-out to another book I haven't read, oh well. But it's short!
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Post by NullNoMore on Apr 30, 2019 14:45:24 GMT -5
Just finished Farewell My Lovely and whooo nelly can Raymond Chandler write. He describes a scene or a character amazingly well, and his humor is on point. The slurs and misogyny of the era are a little much, but worth swallowing.
"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room."
Now I'm reading a series of Rex Stout detective novels featuring Nero Wolfe. Not nearly as good, but so tasty.
Wait, wait! I have a better quote. "Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."
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