Reading Minds: The CoastGab Book Club

[Eddie Coyle]

   THE GOOD SPY: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ROBERT AMES by Kai Bird, 2014

[BobGrau]

Been reading old Transformers comics (Simon Furman era) and found a quote that I've decided to cling to in this big bad scary world I find myself in:


"I can survive this. Can you?"

[Camazotz Automat]

Murmurs of Earth by Carl Sagan, F. D. Drake, Ann Druyan, Timothy Ferris, Jon Lomberg, & Linda Salzman Sagan, 1978.

A book about the Voyager Record; why it was created, how the repertoire was selected, and precisely what the record contains.

"I had monuments made of bronze, lapis lazuli, alabaster ... and white limestone ... and inscriptions of baked clay ... I deposited them in the foundations and left them for future times." - Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, seventh century B.C.

[Camazotz Automat]

I realize the website owner is incredibly busy, building a large experimental antenna array on privately owned land behind the truck stop, but how about changing CoastGab Book Club to BellGab Book Club.

It makes good sense, and the alliteration is pleasing to mind and body.

God knows I don't ask for much from/of this ersatz taxidermy palace, yet I give, and give, and give ...

[zeebo]

... how about changing CoastGab Book Club to BellGab Book Club. ...

It's a fair point considering the current leader of Coast to Coast mainly uses books to flatten his turkee sub sammiches.

[Camazotz Automat]

Thomas Wolfe by Andrew Turnbull. (1969)

[21st Century Man]

Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters â€" Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler by Allan Ryskind.  This shows screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson for the despicable traitors that they were.  Elia Kazan was a true American Patriot and even though Sterling Hayden later regretted his testimony before HUAC, you walk away from the book loving that big lug.  I'm sure he felt like a rat so I can understand where he's coming from.  Ryskind is the son of Democrat screenwriter, Morrie Ryskind, who co-wrote some of the Marx Brothers best films. Morrie was a liberal but zealous anti-Communist.

[onan]

Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters â€" Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler by Allan Ryskind.  This shows screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson for the despicable traitors that they were.  Elia Kazan was a true American Patriot and even though Sterling Hayden later regretted his testimony before HUAC, you walk away from the book loving that big lug.  I'm sure he felt like a rat so I can understand where he's coming from.  Ryskind is the son of Democrat screenwriter, Morrie Ryskind, who co-wrote some of the Marx Brothers best films. Morrie was a liberal but zealous anti-Communist.

If Trumbo was a communist, then that is what I want to be.

[Juan]

If Trumbo was a communist, then that is what I want to be.

He joined the Communist Party. Doesn't that make him a communist? Or is joining the party no longer definitive?  It's hard to keep up.

[onan]

He joined the Communist Party. Doesn't that make him a communist? Or is joining the party no longer definitive?  It's hard to keep up.

I dunno. That does seem to be a bit reductive. Johnny Got His Gun was one of the best books I have read. That's really my only take on this.

[Holy Ghosts]

To date, one of the most fascinating books on ghosts and haunted places I've found is Paul Devereux's "Haunted Land: Investigations into Ancient Mysteries and Modern Day Phenomena." Very scientific minded, thoroughly researched, and he touches on nearly everything--witches, ghosts, ancient European shamanism, Little People, UFOs, etc.

[Camazotz Automat]

Higgs Discovery : The Power of Empty Space by Lisa Randall (2012)

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Cannonbridge, by Jonathan Barnes.  Loved the premise and the build-up, but the payoff was a wooden nickel that gave me a splinter.  Very disappointing.

[Camazotz Automat]

This topic was started in October of 2008 and has only reached eighteen pages.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

This topic was started in October of 2008 and has only reached eighteen pages.

I'm sure the page count would be considerably higher if somebody had written The Big Book of Falkie.   :

[albrecht]

This topic was started in October of 2008 and has only reached eighteen pages.

Probably because people are embarrassed and, like me, read so much "crap," especially during the summer months.

[Camazotz Automat]

I'm sure the page count would be considerably higher if somebody had written The Big Book of Falkie.   :

Don't get me started.

Probably because people are embarrassed and, like me, read so much "crap," especially during the summer months.

Heh. I do like reading both "trash" and "treasure."

This good bloke in Ireland had an interesting idea when he created his site/publishing company:

http://www.trashface.com

Trashface brought back Thomas Page's The Hephaestus Plague (1973 ) and The Man Who Would Not Die (1981).  How cool is that?

[Camazotz Automat]

The Starry Wisdom Library - THE CATALOGUE OF THE GREATEST OCCULT BOOK AUCTION OF ALL TIME (2014) edited by Nate Pedersen, jacketed hardcovers

Dark Homages (2014) by H.R. Arswyd, ebook


http://www.pspublishing.co.uk/the-starry-wisdom-library-jhc-edited-by-nate-pedersen-2564-p.asp

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Homages-H-R-Arswyd-ebook/dp/B00O3PPENQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1437283421&sr=8-1&keywords=Dark+Homages++H.R.+Arswyd

[NightsAtSea]

This topic was started in October of 2008 and has only reached eighteen pages.

Well now that I'm here I promise the topic will grow faster!


Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (1945)

[aldousburbank]

[NightsAtSea]

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014). This is one of the better books I've ever read; it's a speculative fiction novel that takes place before/during/after a pandemic that kills 99% of the human population. It's beautifully written. And I promise my opinion is not at all skewed by how profoundly refreshing it was to read an apocalyptic novel that wasn't about zombies!

[Camazotz Automat]

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2014). This is one of the better books I've ever read; it's a speculative fiction novel that takes place before/during/after a pandemic that kills 99% of the human population. It's beautifully written. And I promise my opinion is not at all skewed by how profoundly refreshing it was to read an apocalyptic novel that wasn't about zombies!

Heh. Too much of a dead thing, eh?

The horror market is indeed, inundated by the herky jerky automatons. I wonder what the next "big thing" will be? Any thoughts, NAS?

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

I'm halfway through the fourth book in Kage Baker's "The Company" series and have been enjoying the heck out it.  I can see a lot of her influence in John Scalzi's style, particularly her flippant dialogue and the way she puts a comic spin on some serious subjects.  I went into it cold on a recommendation and have deliberately avoided reading reviews, so I'm hoping it all resolves nicely in the end.

[NightsAtSea]

Heh. Too much of a dead thing, eh?

The horror market is indeed, inundated by the herky jerky automatons. I wonder what the next "big thing" will be? Any thoughts, NAS?

I'm starting to see a surge in speculative fiction involving AIs, and I wouldn't be surprised if horror writers latched onto that craze. Oftentimes trends in horror writing echo the threats perceived by society...so rogue AIs and maybe totalitarian governments are likely. But personally I think the 'thing' just on the verge of catching on big-time is sort-of-abstract stuff like House of Leaves. We live in a time when - especially considering the Internet - most of our questions get answered. If we want to know something we can usually figure out at least a close approximation...which makes stories that leave the reader without a clear-cut answer particularly unsettling. So I think we'll see a lot more of that than, for example, slashers or zombies or anything else that allows us to comfortably suss out all the angles.

[Camazotz Automat]

I'm starting to see a surge in speculative fiction involving AIs...

... personally I think the 'thing' just on the verge of catching on big-time is sort-of-abstract stuff like House of Leaves. ...So I think we'll see a lot more of that than, for example, slashers or zombies or anything else that allows us to comfortably suss out all the angles.

Good points. I will guess that there will be an onslaught of "social media" themed horror novels and films, with actors/characters carrying their tablets as they scurry from scene to scene, complaining of "no wi fi signal! Can't call 911!"

God, let me be wrong. I can see the title of a film already: "UNLIKE." 

For all I know, it already exists or is in the works.

I refuse to "Google it"!

heh

[Holy Ghosts]

Too late...there's already an "Unfriended" movie coming out soon...

[Camazotz Automat]

Because they are godless Samoans and godless Spaniards who did not attend any formal schooling, who instead, choose to brandish their obsessive tattoos and strangely effeminate conquistadorian waist armor w/fish-head helmets.

Respectively.

What a MARVELOUS piece of rant!  I LOVE it!

Thank you, sir. 

And you probably intuited I was secretly imagining said fish head helmets were pitiful subconscious attempts to mimic none other than those Dagonian denizens of Innsmouth!

Heh.

Btw, while I can catch you here "live," thanks so much for that tip on "Dark Homages" in the Book Reading thread ... 

~A most excellent tome.~

I am currently spreading the gospel to other Lovecraft experts.

(MABUSE,

I transferred our text to this thread, as it is more on topic, here, anyway. 

One of Prophet John Titor's racial wars may break out at any moment on the "Removal of the Stormfront Radio thread" and I wanted to preserve our exchange on the possibility that the thread is extinguished. Difficult to predict. I am merely John Titor's Clock, not the Prophet Himself. Heh.)

[Camazotz Automat]

Too late...there's already an "Unfriended" movie coming out soon...

I find that depressing. Well, there is still room for me to be wrong with my guess as to what the next big wave of horror will be.

Maybe that film will be received so badly it will not be mimicked. God help us if it's a hit.

Follow-the-buck novelists will be rushing to their keyboards and lifting conversations from social forums to flesh out their characters.

I can see it now ... The Bellgab Box Murders.

Hopefully, NAS is correct with her guess about more "abstract horror" coming down the line. I could deal with that much better.

[zeebo]

...Follow-the-buck novelists will be rushing to their keyboards and lifting conversations from social forums to flesh out their characters.

I'm eagerly awaiting the suspenseful thriller Top Right Corner.

[Camazotz Automat]

I'm eagerly awaiting the suspenseful thriller Top Right Corner.

...it was the best of posts, it was the worst of posts....