Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[Disco Pickle]

My sister, ever keen on my tastes, gave me The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which includes The Body-Snatcher, Markheim and The Bottle Imp.

some of RLS's best, in my opinion..  I'm taking my time.

[Cain]

Currently reading Neuropath by R Scott Bakker which is, by turns, annoying and terrifying.

Basic premise: In the near future (I'm guessing 2035-50 or so), a former neurosurgeon for the NSA, tasked with experimenting on terrorist suspects to get them to tell the truth, goes rogue.  He starts kidnapping people at random and performing dangerous, experimental brain surgery on them, and killing them.  His former best friend, a professor of psychology, is contacted by the FBI and asked for help in trying to figure out what he is doing and track him down.  Meanwhile, there is a serial killer in New York who is not only murdering people in horrific ways, but also extracing their spines...

The annoying: the first couple of chapters are disjointed, and seem to be trying to portray the professor as a deadbeat, hopeless dad too much.  It's jarring in how it is done, and irrelevant to the plot (so far, at least).

The terrifying: where the FBI reveals to the psychologist how the neurosurgeon attached an implant to the spinothalamic and spinoreticular pathways to one of his victims, to induce uncontrollable pleasure, and then handed her a piece of broken glass....

Yeah, that sounds like Bakker. If he follows the pattern of his Prince of Nothing series, the deadbeat dad professor will ultimately redeem himself, despite all his flaws (okay, flaw, singular, that one flaw being his status as a despairing sadsack), as one of the most humane and sympathetic characters.

And, again, if he follows the pattern, the story will come together and become compelling enough to prompt a re-read at some point in the future just to make sense of the jumbled first few chapters.


I'm telling you this so you can let me know whether or not he follows said pattern, basically.

Well so far, he's definitely the most humane and sympathetic character, but that's because all the others are either

insane neurosurgeons who tortured people for the NSA
some guy who can't remember anyone's faces anymore and consequently hates humanity
hardass FBI agents
his bratty kids
his ex-wife, who cheated on him with his former best friend (see person #1 in this list)

[BadBeast]

Just read Kurt Vonnegut's ''Slaughterhouse 5'' for the first time. In one sitting. Never read him before.

Fucking why the fucking fuck not??  I can't believe I never read him before. It's like  literary Hawkwind.

Vonnegut's writing is some of the most gripping and accurate commentary on the human condition, period.

You might enjoy "Breakfast of Champions" next, when you're ready for more.

I will certainly be reading more of him, whenever the opportunity arises. I can't remember being more impressed with any Author new to me. (Except perhaps Hesse)

[Jasper]

Breakfast of Champions is beautiful and sad and true and hilarious.

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.

[BadBeast]

Breakfast of Champions is beautiful and sad and true and hilarious.

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.

Breakfast of Champions it is then. Thanks Sig.

[Jasper]

[Doktor Howl]

Breakfast of Champions is beautiful and sad and true and hilarious.

I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.

Breakfast of Champions it is then. Thanks Sig.

Mother Night is better.

[Jasper]

Haven't read it yet, myself

[BadBeast]

I'm planning on reading everything I can find of his.  Although when I tried that with Terry Pratchet, I needed a seven year break after "The Hogfather". I've got KV nominated for a place in my Top 5 Authors of all time already though.
His style is so easy to read, it's almost like some kind of telepathy. Billy Pilgrim is so easy to identify with, powerless, and a victim of the most horribly farcical turns of fate, but you don't feel sorry for him, largely, I think, because his character is so utterly pragmatic and somehow, optimistic, that he carries the whole tale as a kind of example of how to not let life break you.
Great stuff.

[Doktor Howl]

Haven't read it yet, myself

Best thing he ever wrote.

Ends badly, but that's pretty much standard for Vonnegut.

[Jasper]

You mean badly for the characters or badly written?

[Doktor Howl]

You mean badly for the characters or badly written?

Badly for the characters.  It's the best writing Vonnegut's ever done.

[Jasper]

He is known for his advice to writers, "Abuse your protagonists." or words to that effect.

[Doktor Howl]

He is known for his advice to writers, "Abuse your protagonists." or words to that effect.

Yeah, and it works.  Of course, I've most often been my own protagonist.

Dok,
Self abuser.

[Jasper]

:choke, cackle: