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Reading Minds: The CoastGab Book Club

Started by PhantasticSanShiSan, October 23, 2008, 12:06:30 AM

zeebo

Anyone have a good suggestion for a good fall/winter book?  Nights are getting colder, storms are passing through.  Something gothic and spooky perhaps.

Quote from: zeebo on November 14, 2014, 07:15:01 PM
Anyone have a good suggestion for a good fall/winter book?  Nights are getting colder, storms are passing through.  Something gothic and spooky perhaps.

The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.  It mostly takes place in 1810 London and has time travel, very nasty ancient Egyptian sorcery, sinister homunculi, and the most evil, dark magic practicing, surgically altered clown on stilts in all of literature.  Is that spooky enough?

albrecht

Quote from: zeebo on November 14, 2014, 07:15:01 PM
Anyone have a good suggestion for a good fall/winter book?  Nights are getting colder, storms are passing through.  Something gothic and spooky perhaps.
"The Woman in White" by Wilkie Collins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_in_White_%28novel%29
"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Wind

aldousburbank

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on November 14, 2014, 07:25:12 PM
The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers.  It mostly takes place in 1810 London and has time travel, very nasty ancient Egyptian sorcery, sinister homunculi...
It's been ages since I've curled up in bed and relaxed with some sinister homunculi. Can't wait.

zeebo

Quote from: aldousburbank on November 14, 2014, 10:09:40 PM
It's been ages since I've curled up in bed and relaxed with some sinister homunculi. Can't wait.

I was thinking the same thing.  Thanks RGG (and albrecht) for some cool suggestions.

albrecht

Quote from: zeebo on November 14, 2014, 10:49:43 PM
I was thinking the same thing.  Thanks RGG (and albrecht) for some cool suggestions.
I think youd enjoy both. Though very "popular" and so I was a little hesitant I think Shadow of Wind was really fun read. Good luck with whatever choices.

Quote from: zeebo on November 14, 2014, 10:49:43 PM
I was thinking the same thing.  Thanks RGG (and albrecht) for some cool suggestions.

Any time! I don't know why I didn't think if it before, given last night's entertaining topic, but another Powers book you might enjoy is The Stress of Her Regard.  It involves Keats, Shelley, and Lord Byron, the Nephilim muses who love them obsessively (and forget everything you thought you knew about Nephilim), and some unfortunate people who accidentally got too close to them.

Quote from: zeebo on August 27, 2014, 04:14:56 PM
GRRM is definitely good at writing interesting, fleshed-out characters with various motivations and flaws/strengths/moralities, and especially good at writing dialogue (as well as internal monologues).  Some of the action sequences and plot twists are exciting and unconventional and even have a strain of dark humor, of which I'm a fan.  Martin gives great evocative descriptions down to very minute details of his world.  And there are some fantastic wry one-liners as well, sprinkled throughout.


You should check out Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance if you like that aspect of GRRM's writing.


I just read A Voyage to Arcturus which was in some ways interesting but had too many references to ancient Greek mysticism. I ended up reading a bunch of other things just to follow it. But it is in the public domain and available at this link: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1329

I am going to toss out an unusual fall recommendation-an adventure tale (in the public domain)
THE MEMOIRS OF THE CONQUISTADOR BERNAL DIAZ DEL CASTILLO
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF
CONTAINING A TRUE AND FULL ACCOUNT OF THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF MEXICO AND NEW SPAIN
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32474/32474-h/32474-h.htm

Quote from: aldousburbank on November 14, 2014, 10:09:40 PM
It's been ages since I've curled up in bed and relaxed with some sinister homunculi. Can't wait.

Not only are they sinister, they're also spoonsize!

zeebo

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on November 15, 2014, 02:22:44 AM
You should check out Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance if you like that aspect of GRRM's writing....

Can you believe I've never read any J. Vance?  I've been meaning to check out his Dying Earth stuff but haven't gotten to it yet.  Don't know if your suggestion is part of that or a one-off but will check it out in any case, thanks.

Just After Sunset : Stories (2008) by Stephen King.  Short story collection.

With King's release of Revival this month, I realized how much of his more recent work I have not read.  In the coming weeks, I will try to become King Current. No easy task, but should help me endure this gloomy ass weather.  The brilliant soundscapes of Thomas Köner provide the aural backdrop as I "kill the King." So to speak.


But putting Thomas Köner aside for a moment . . .

And breaking out the banjo, to sing a duet with Hank III:


Wellllllllllllllllllllllll,

I've got one foot in the grave, one tomato on the vine
I can't listen to George Noory without a case of wine
I'm waiting for Art Bell to return to the waves
But it's not looking very good, thank God Jesus saves

I'm holding onto hope, that things will turn out right
I need a better voice to make it through the night
Now that Spec Sheet's dead, thing's are looking pretty slim
Like that anaconda that never could catch Jim

So here I sit brooding, reading my Stephen King
He's writing too much, retirement was just a fling
His stories got me thinking we always have Plan B
We can dig up Art's corpse and make him a zombie

We'll set up a corpse-cast....
It will mess with everyone's headddddddddddddddd...

"Hello, you've reached Art Bell... you're on the Talking Dead."


It sort of goes into a dueling banjo Deliverance thing from there and a commercial for Kellogg's Corn Flakes pops up.


albrecht

Quote from: zeebo on November 14, 2014, 07:15:01 PM
Anyone have a good suggestion for a good fall/winter book?  Nights are getting colder, storms are passing through.  Something gothic and spooky perhaps.
Just finished "I Remember You" by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir. Good plot and spooky.
http://www.amazon.com/I-Remember-You-Ghost-Story/dp/1250045622/ref=la_B001I9RRB2_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417667565&sr=1-1


Quote from: zeebo on November 14, 2014, 10:49:43 PM
I was thinking the same thing.  Thanks RGG (and albrecht) for some cool suggestions.

That does sound like a good suggestion.  I am hearing good things about Maplecroft by Cheri Priest:  Lizzy Borden fighting Cthulu in an old family manse.  I enjoyed her zombie series quite a lot, too (set in a reimagined Civil War-era steampunk Seattle).

I have been reading American Prometheus -- a biography on J Robert Oppenheimer; it is very informative and engaging.

Yesterday, at a used book store, I found a copy of Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins. It's an older printing, 1980, but in very good shape. Many clusters of moons have passed since I read this novel.  Now is the perfect time to deja view it and bring in the New Year with fresh eyeball skins.

This tome set me back a mere $1.50.

Cram that up your Kindle, Amazon!

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on December 16, 2014, 03:16:01 AM
Yesterday, at a used book store, I found a copy of Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins. It's an older printing, 1980, but in very good shape. Many clusters of moons have passed since I read this novel.  Now is the perfect time to deja view it and bring in the New Year with fresh eyeball skins.

This tome set me back a mere $1.50.

Cram that up your Kindle, Amazon!

Great find, Cam!  May you still find it filled with lustrous wonder after so many years!

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to TR's memoir yet, and it's all your fault because I got seriously sidetracked by Travis McGee.  I'm down to the last one, and am trying to put it off as long as possible because I'm not ready to let go yet.   

Eddie Coyle


    Books about horrible neurotics.

       Victor Bockris updated "Transformer" , a Lou Reed bio.

       Ben Bradlee Jr's "The Kid" about Ted Williams

       Garry Willis- self explanatory "The Kennedy Imprisonment"  


QuoteBradbury was actually more concerned with TV destroying interest in literature than he was with government censorship...

What probably pissed Bradbury off more than anything was that people completely disregarded his interpretation of his own book. In fact, when Bradbury was a guest lecturer in a class at UCLA, students flat-out told him to his face that he was mistaken and that his book is really about censorship. He walked out.


From the Cracked article.

albrecht

Quote from: Mind Flayer Monk on December 16, 2014, 09:39:00 PM


From the Cracked article.
I love when English Lit scholars, psychologists, students, etc "deconstruct" or assert themes and motives etc for novels, poems, films even when the author denys such or when decades or centuries later they "rethink" the whole piece in light of some post-modern mumbo-jumbo.

Kelt

I'm going to tentatively recommend John Waters' 'Carsick'.


I'm pretty sure it'll be like nothing you've read before.


http://youtu.be/IXB5qSsSwVE

Quote from: Kelt on December 16, 2014, 10:41:21 PM
I'm going to tentatively recommend John Waters' 'Carsick'.


I'm pretty sure it'll be like nothing you've read before.



I completely forgot about that--thanks for the reminder!  I wonder how many people saw him and said, "Hey, that guy looks just like John Waters!" and didn't give him a ride. 

paladin1991

Quote from: albrecht on December 16, 2014, 09:45:03 PM
I love when English Lit scholars, psychologists, students, etc "deconstruct" or assert themes and motives etc for novels, poems, films even when the author denys such or when decades or centuries later they "rethink" the whole piece in light of some post-modern mumbo-jumbo.
Heh.  I'm reminded of an anecdote;  George Romero, creator of the American zombie classic, 'Night of the Living Dead' was being interviewed by film students at some fucking film school.  After the interview, where Mr. Romero gave his views on the production and message of the film, a  Q&A followed. 
A film student stood up and lectured the creator of the movie, that the real concept of the film was an indictment of the mindless American consumption of everything.

Silence.

A sigh fm Mr. Romero, "Okay."

Quote from: Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost on December 16, 2014, 03:57:07 PM
Great find, Cam!  May you still find it filled with lustrous wonder after so many years!

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to TR's memoir yet, and it's all your fault because I got seriously sidetracked by Travis McGee.  I'm down to the last one, and am trying to put it off as long as possible because I'm not ready to let go yet.

I think you're wise to hold off on the final book. It demands a good setting or special occasion or both.

When the student is ready, The Lonely Silver Rain will come.

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on December 17, 2014, 06:15:12 PM
I think you're wise to hold off on the final book. It demands a good setting or special occasion or both.

When the student is ready, The Lonely Silver Rain will come.

Hold the phone and stop the presses!  It looks like there are six I haven't read!  I thought The Dreadful Lemon Sky was the last one, because the various installments I have, which must be earlier editions, list that as the last one. This is stupendously happy pancake news indeed, and now I can jump right into TDLS without having to worry about withdrawals afterward!  Unfortunately, I might have to order them because our library doesn't have them, and the friend who filled in some of the gaps doesn't have them, either.  But that's something to worry about another day!

BTW, I recently read my first non-McGee MacDonald book, One More Sunday, and enjoyed the heck out it.  I am completely in awe of his ability to crank out so many elaborately plotted, first rate stories.  Where the heck did he find the time?



The Dreadful Lemon Sky is, in my opinion, one of the very best in the Travis McGee series.

You're in for a great read!

The volume of work MacDonald created is mind blowing. I believe it could be that writing while living on his boat was a conduit to a different state of mind, a perfect catalyst while riding the electric typewriter lightning.

Juan

Perhaps the alcohol lunches with other writers helped lubricate his creativity, too.

Here's the order of the Travis McGee books
http://www.orderofbooks.com/characters/travis-mcgee/

Quote from: Juan on December 17, 2014, 07:27:08 PM
Perhaps the alcohol lunches with other writers helped lubricate his creativity, too.


Such lunches always a positive for jump-starting a dead typewriter...

To address RGG's question about finding the time (let alone the creativity) - clearly JDM had a similarly skilled twin brother that kept in the shadows in a Cronenbergian Dead Ringers type of arrangement.

Hell, maybe it was triplets.

Quote from: Camazotz Automat on December 17, 2014, 08:26:57 PM
Such lunches always a positive for jump-starting a dead typewriter...

To address RGG's question about finding the time (let alone the creativity) - clearly JDM had a similarly skilled twin brother that kept in the shadows in a Cronenbergian Dead Ringers type of arrangement.

Hell, maybe it was triplets.


Triplets possessed by the collective ids of every incarnation of Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon, freed from servitude and finally able to write the books they always wanted to.

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