Favorite books / What are you reading?

[Chr1s]

Lovecraft is pretty cool. I'm reading "Fourteen Kinds of Loneliness" by Richard Yates.

Nice to hear that from you . I myself think it's a very interesting book to read(I'm talking about Lovecraft's) and as an extra the book is pretty damn big. (btw I don't own the actual book I'm reading it off the internet)

Edit: I'm a Latvian reading English books

 

[mobucks]

I'll look into it. Sounds interesting, but your tracer account seems unrealistic. When firing full mags of tracers, you will cause extreme fouling to your gun in a very short time. Not saying it's impossible, just that it's really discouraged (max of 1 tracer per 3 rounds is the common standard for most nations). But remember Vietnam was the era were the AR15 was vilified for unreliability (albeit largely due to shit ammo and wrong info about cleaning), so it seems odd if they were full magazines worth of tracers. I'll need to read the book to confirm, I guess.

Well if you were out on a mission and snapped a branch more than once they kicked people out. Missions, if i recall, were only to monitor enemy activity and place communication bugs, maybe get lucky and capture an officer. The tracers were used to create a morale effect more than anything, to the enemy it seemed like LMGs opening up.

A sustained contact was the most dire situation to be in while in Laos, since i think we were'nt supposed to be there. So hit and run, make the enemy consider following you, and hope you can evac somewhere asap. The initial "hit" being the most important to successfully getting away.

A professional like that wouldnt trust any gun claiming to never need cleaning, even a responsible gun owner would'nt. Unfortunately draftees well there were way more of them so you know.. it really sucks and pains me to think of the asshole egos of the brass and how it affected the lowly grunt, but thats another thread.

 

[CloudlessDruid]

reading Economic History of the Colonial Age in Brazil.

Part of a very interesting series that study the economic development of Brazil and other Latin American nations through the history, though only the first volume (this one I said I'm reading) says relevant things about other latin american nations. Mostly, it's everything about Brazil.

 

[MutantScalper]

Jon Krakauer - Into Thin Air. Just recently got this, haven't yet started reading.

Finished this, a good read. The book documents these events from 1996. A good documentary in the same vein is Touching the void.

 

[Xellos]

Orwell's 1984, a true classic, keep returning to this one

 

[SkuLL]

Right now I'm reading the updated version of Stephen King's 'The Stand', a novel about a military-developed virus wiping out most of the planet. He had to cut like 40% out of the text before the first release due to budget reasons, but the humongous 'final' version reads really well, in spite of a bit of King-esque cheese here and there. One of my favourite post-apocalyptic reads.

An absolute MUST for fans of the apocalyptic novels is Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer', however. A comet of the same name heads towards earth and eventually hits it. You follow some people's fates from months before the hit to decades after the hit (it wipes out most of civilisation, results in an ice age). A real stunner, very realistic in the sense that it's been well thought-through and it could really happen (unlike The Stand which tends pretty far fetched at times). Anyone read it?

 

[Quoth]

Next poster chooses what I read next between:

Starship Troopers.
No country for old men.

 

[CloudlessDruid]

No country for old man

have no idea what both are about, but I HATE OLD MAN

just kidding, I just the sound of it better

 

[DirkGently]

Read them both. Better option.

Currently reading 1984 and Matter, by George Orwell (obviously) and Ian M. Banks (respectively).

 

[Einhänder]

Metro 2033. I'm too jewish to get the game right now.

 

[DirkGently]

Metro 2033. I'm too jewish to get the game right now.

Rent it. It's a great game, has some pr. good replay value, but the actual game can be beaten in like eight hours. However, it's fucking beautiful in a lot ways.

I need to read that, though. It's been translated/distributed in english in america, right?

 

[PainlessDocM]

Played the game, was ok but nothing special. Is the novel any good?

I am about to read "Imperial Bedrooms" the sequel to one of my favorite teen novels "Less than zero" by Bret Easton Ellis.

 

[Einhänder]

I need to read that, though. It's been translated/distributed in english in america, right?

I don't know, I got it in eBook format, in a legally questionable way.

Played the game, was ok but nothing special. Is the novel any good?

Well, I've just started it, it seems alright.

 

[mor]

I'll look into it. Sounds interesting, but your tracer account seems unrealistic. When firing full mags of tracers, you will cause extreme fouling to your gun in a very short time. Not saying it's impossible, just that it's really discouraged (max of 1 tracer per 3 rounds is the common standard for most nations). But remember Vietnam was the era were the AR15 was vilified for unreliability (albeit largely due to shit ammo and wrong info about cleaning), so it seems odd if they were full magazines worth of tracers. I'll need to read the book to confirm, I guess.

Well if you were out on a mission and snapped a branch more than once they kicked people out. Missions, if i recall, were only to monitor enemy activity and place communication bugs, maybe get lucky and capture an officer. The tracers were used to create a morale effect more than anything, to the enemy it seemed like LMGs opening up.

yep, because study showed that squads using tracers had lower effectiveness and higher casualties rates, especially air crews.

 

[alec]

Reading "Te oud voor kamperen en andere verhalen" by Louis Paul Boon, the greatest Flemish writer to have ever lived.
It's probably translated into English by now as "Too Old for Camping" or some such thing.

 

[DexterMorgan]

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann that I picked second-hand on impulse. Rather shocked by the homoeroticism in the titular story (didn't know what the story was about.

 

[alec]

Venice? Gay men?

Come on, man. Your subconscious must have led you.

 

[UniversalWolf]

I am about to read "Imperial Bedrooms" the sequel to one of my favorite teen novels "Less than zero" by Bret Easton Ellis.

Getting pretty poor reviews, from what I've seen, so tell us how you like it.

Less Than Zero is a great 1980's movie, BTW.

 

[PainlessDocM]

I didn't like the movie, they turned Clay into an anti drug protagonist/advocate. Made little sense to me

Reading "Te oud voor kamperen en andere verhalen" by Louis Paul Boon, the greatest Flemish writer to have ever lived.
It's probably translated into English by now as "Too Old for Camping" or some such thing.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

Orwell's 1984, a true classic, keep returning to this one

Reread it a while back because I wanted to use some parts of it in a philosophy paper. Wonderful book that keeps on giving. I would also recommend a very small bundle of short essays by Orwell called 'Books V. Cigarettes' (actually the title of one the essays), otherwise known as No. 376 of Penguin Books series 'Great Ideas'.

Edit: Furthermore, just finished reading a novelle by Theodor Storm, Der Schimmelreiter. Been awhile since I've read German literature, but this one was quite worth it.