Summer reading
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John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes
Russia Under the Bolsheviks by Richard Pipes
Russia Under the Old Regime by Richard Pipes
Heaven on Earth : The Rise and Fall of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik
The Magus by John Fowles
The Idiot by Dostoyevsky
Maybe something else.
Russia Under the Bolsheviks by Richard Pipes
Russia Under the Old Regime by Richard Pipes
Heaven on Earth : The Rise and Fall of Socialism by Joshua Muravchik
The Magus by John Fowles
The Idiot by Dostoyevsky
Maybe something else.
well, maybe not on paper, but first you gotta pay the money transfer fees to $; then you get the very encouraging "Please note that you are responsible for any customs clearance, duties, taxes or other charges that may be incurred upon arrival of your shipment in your country. These fees are not included in our shipping charges."Pajari said:No, it's not US only. They ship all over the world.
Bud
i've seen that before... i know enough stories of people paying over double the price they initially thought they'd pay...
EyeMaster7
A Smooth-Skin
You must read 1984 because we are in 1984.
Shit, I need to buy a new calendar. 
BTW SuAside, read Chestertons The Man Who Was Thursday, if you still haven't, of course, it's somewhat in lieu with what you want to read.
BTW SuAside, read Chestertons The Man Who Was Thursday, if you still haven't, of course, it's somewhat in lieu with what you want to read.
SuAside said:well, maybe not on paper, but first you gotta pay the money transfer fees to $; then you get the very encouraging "Please note that you are responsible for any customs clearance, duties, taxes or other charges that may be incurred upon arrival of your shipment in your country. These fees are not included in our shipping charges."Pajari said:No, it's not US only. They ship all over the world.
Bud
i've seen that before... i know enough stories of people paying over double the price they initially thought they'd pay...
Well, you said they didn't ship at all to Europe, not that it might be difficult. I was just correcting you.
And even if you do pay double, these books are so dirt-cheap it doesn't even matter. Expecially with a favorable Euro-Dollar exchange rate (and especially with that ridiculous ten-euro price tag for a paperback.. yuck).
Anyway, I was just letting you know.
i'll look into itDirtyDreamDesigner said:
correct, pretty bad wording on my part. thanks though.Pajari said:
(a big problem is the suppliment banks sometimes charge for euro t $ transactions, which is often an arbitrary number, rather than a percentual cost)
if you think paperbacks are bad, you should see the prices on comics in belgium (both soft & hardcovers)... really moronic. i'll just say that french hardcovers are a few euro's cheaper than belgian softcovers.
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
Agreed. TMWWT is great.
Paladin Solo
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
So far, this spring/summer,
I've reread;
Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
The Giver by Lois Lowry
I am currently reading;
The US Army Survival Manual (farking boring) by the DoD
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
On my reading list is;
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
The Tides of War by Steven Pressfield
and whatever else I come across that interests me.
I've reread;
Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
The Giver by Lois Lowry
I am currently reading;
The US Army Survival Manual (farking boring) by the DoD
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
On my reading list is;
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
The Tides of War by Steven Pressfield
and whatever else I come across that interests me.
I too am under the impression that Dostojevskij is on a different level from Tolstoj - his Letters from the Underworld is said to be flawless.
That was going to be a recommendation of mine as well.
Supplement Heinlein with some Bradbury, perhaps - Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles are good reads.
GRR Martin for worthwhile fantasy bricks.
Jack Vance's The Dying Earth, Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga for the win.
Kafka's The Process is good, but you have to read it as an absurdist comedy, which I have no doubt it was written as.
Nova said:
That was going to be a recommendation of mine as well.
Supplement Heinlein with some Bradbury, perhaps - Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles are good reads.
GRR Martin for worthwhile fantasy bricks.
Jack Vance's The Dying Earth, Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel's Saga for the win.
Kafka's The Process is good, but you have to read it as an absurdist comedy, which I have no doubt it was written as.
Bradylama
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
I'm generally too busy to read off of anything that doesn't create radiation, but I just finished up I, robot and bought Caves of Steel and its immediate sequel.
There's really no reason to have not read at least Robot, not even ignorance. I see the light now.
There's really no reason to have not read at least Robot, not even ignorance. I see the light now.
OnTheBounce
Still Mildly Glowing
Pale Horse said:
Tell me about it.
With the exception of the short story Who Goes There? by John Campbell -- he was the editor of Astounding, the Sci-Fi mag of old -- which was the basis for the films The Thing from Another World and The Thing...erm...well, it's been nothing but Field Manuals, Training Circulars, Army Regulations, Training Bulletins, etc.
Army literature really is the cure for insomnia...
That's what I get for volunteering to come to this school, though...
As for Who Goes There?, it was some hack writing, to be sure. To make matters worse it only occupied me for a portion of an evening... }
OTB
I just read an excellent book by Naill Ferguson, called 'The War of the World (History's age of Hatred)'.
I asked my mommy to bring me a new batch of books from her work (the city library). What will they be? OMG the excitement.
I asked my mommy to bring me a new batch of books from her work (the city library). What will they be? OMG the excitement.
SuAside, have you ever had the chance to read A Canticle for Leibowitz? Based on some of your other choices, I believe you will enjoy this, and it is rather appropriate reading for this community.
On the topic of Lovecraft, I find this collection of his work to be the best of my knowledge.
I would also recommend, on general principle, the works of Alfred Bester. The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man in paticular, and in that order. You can read up on the two books from Amazon (TSMD and TDM); if you follow the "Look inside this book" link under the cover image, you can read exerpts from the books. That will give you a better sense of his work than any description I may write.
By the way, I found this amusing, from the Amazon page of the Lovecraft collection I linked to:
On the topic of Lovecraft, I find this collection of his work to be the best of my knowledge.
I would also recommend, on general principle, the works of Alfred Bester. The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man in paticular, and in that order. You can read up on the two books from Amazon (TSMD and TDM); if you follow the "Look inside this book" link under the cover image, you can read exerpts from the books. That will give you a better sense of his work than any description I may write.
By the way, I found this amusing, from the Amazon page of the Lovecraft collection I linked to:
The Vault Dweller
always looking for water.
Oh boy!
I've been asking people to buy me something from Lovecraft ever since a friend told me of his work over 4 years ago, but no one ever has bought me any and I guessed the books were old and hard to find.
I'm writing that title down to get. Thanks Kotario.
Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
I've been asking people to buy me something from Lovecraft ever since a friend told me of his work over 4 years ago, but no one ever has bought me any and I guessed the books were old and hard to find.
I'm writing that title down to get. Thanks Kotario.
Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
Well, in my experience, you can find a few copies of Del Rey collections in any large-scale bookstore. You can spot them easily by their titles, for example The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre or Dreams of Terror and Death: The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft.The_Vault_Dweller said:
Actually, Del Rey's The Best of H. P. Lovecraft is a fairly good collection, and considerably cheaper than the Library of America collection. It is also more likely to be found in a bookstore. The LoA version is more complete however, having all of what is generally considered to be the best of Lovecraft. I suppose it really matters what priorities are important to you.
SuAside, man, you should just follow my advice and read that book by Georges Perec, Un homme qui dort. De Arbeiderspers has a really fine translated edition of it if you don't want to read it in French, and it's only 100 pages long so it won't ask that much effort. It's really a small masterpiece, trust me. It's written in the second person singular à la "you wake up one morning and you feel like something the cat dragged in", which makes for a very special read. It's about boredom, immobility, ennui, the incredible lightness of being. It's one of my all-time favourite books.
Slapstick or Lonesome No More by Vonnegut is brilliant as well. A weird mix of autobiography, post-apocalyptic solitude, criticism and humor. It's not Vonnegut's best, not in a long shot, but it creates a certain grotesque atmosphere which appeals to me - and very much so. I'd recommend it to all of you PA fanatics.
Other great reads?
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (you will laugh your arse off and be strangely moved at the same time)
Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut (just... you know... comic genius at its best... you'll never read anything like that again... ever... alas)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (Childish? I don't think so. These texts are filled to the brim with puns, wordplay, mathematic oddities and Freudian slips of the <strike>tongue</strike> pen, it'll make Shakespeare, James Joyce and Kafka look like a bunch of illiterate babies)
Slapstick or Lonesome No More by Vonnegut is brilliant as well. A weird mix of autobiography, post-apocalyptic solitude, criticism and humor. It's not Vonnegut's best, not in a long shot, but it creates a certain grotesque atmosphere which appeals to me - and very much so. I'd recommend it to all of you PA fanatics.
Other great reads?
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (you will laugh your arse off and be strangely moved at the same time)
Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut (just... you know... comic genius at its best... you'll never read anything like that again... ever... alas)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll (Childish? I don't think so. These texts are filled to the brim with puns, wordplay, mathematic oddities and Freudian slips of the <strike>tongue</strike> pen, it'll make Shakespeare, James Joyce and Kafka look like a bunch of illiterate babies)
i didn't find thatone on the site where i placed my order, but i will eventually read it in due timealec said:
i already ordered thatone, together with Catch-22 - Joseph Heller, Nineteen Eighty-four - George Orwell, Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein & Brave New World - Aldous Huxley.alec said:
the others will have to wait for now.