What are you currently reading?

[A L I X]

I'm currently reading Short Stories by Vasily Shukshin. I first decided to pick it up thinking "haha, let's see how are the stories that the TNO guy wrote" and now I'm an unironic fan of Shukshin's works. I need to see the movies in which he worked. Also, Eduard Artemyev's music is great.

View: https://youtu.be/sJj9y4t9UnU?si=8d8156lOF3WI3v1T


Also, I'm going to start reading Hemmingway's books. Starting with The Old Man and the Sea. And after all of this, I will read Dune.

 

[Some_porcupine]

Klara and the Sun.
page 70+, it is great so far

ended it, was whiplash

 

[Yabba]

I finished CCRU and will probably make a review and discussion thread about it. Now I'm reading Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. It seems to be mainly about overpopulation so far. While I don't really think it's a problem in real life, it still feels like a real problem in the world due to things like the Fuller Dome. The book also had some insane predictions that turned out to be true like the acceptance of homosexuality, the legalisation of marijuana, DEI hires, etc. Brunner just seems to have git the reasoning wrong.

 

[LostintheCycle]

I finished CCRU and will probably make a review and discussion thread about it. Now I'm reading Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. It seems to be mainly about overpopulation so far. While I don't really think it's a problem in real life, it still feels like a real problem in the world due to things like the Fuller Dome. The book also had some insane predictions that turned out to be true like the acceptance of homosexuality, the legalisation of marijuana, DEI hires, etc. Brunner just seems to have git the reasoning wrong.

Please ping me when you do; I'm currently reading the Ccru writings, I've finished two 'parts' of it, up to the AOE, and am interested in talking about it with others here.
I'm also reading Cyberia at the same time. I take most of the stories with a grain of salt, nonetheless it's interesting. It is weird to see these cyberians who are so optimistic about the impact of computing. I guess everybody did come to Cyberia, and dragged the whole ass world with them too. When I read about the prospect of the VR cyber-classroom and I could only think about the awful 'Metaverse' thing.
One thing is for sure, I think I will finally 'get' SEL next time I watch it.

 

[COCKPIT BLUNTSMOKER]

Currently reading The Black Jacobins by CLR James, a historical account of the Haitian revolution, and its greatest leader, Toussaint L'Ouverture. The story is full of realities which are sickening at times and wholly inspiring at others. Some moments involving colonialism and oppression I notice as historical pattern, themes and struggles that transcend time and culture.
When I started reading this book I decided I would stop saying the n word so goddamn much. If you're familiar with my recent post history that may come as a surprise to you. I'm gonna have to recommit to that principle...

 

[microbyte]

I started yesterday, and am now about to finish, Journeys by Robert Monroe. He was a businessman who, in the 50s and 60s, started to have these out-of-body experiences, and in this book he details what he saw and he makes of it, alongside showing how it is accurate (e.g. he got a new house, devoid of pictures of its former owner. On his first night, someone goes up to him and asks him what he's going to do to the paintings. When he gives her a good answer, she grasps his hands, and then leaves. He asked the former neighbor about the previous owner, and she died a year before that, and had done that strange mannerism and looked like the person he saw). I would 100% recommend this book to everyone. Life changing right here — gives you a whole new outlook.

 

[McGovern '72!]

Hey everyone it's your least favorite federal agent here; I don't want to clog up /lit/ with yet another thread and I got character limited on profile posts so I'm flooding this chat with my pseud larp

Recently I just got around to reading Albert Caraco's Breviary of Chaos and I thought it was really interesting, but in a mostly unintentional way, where the """philosophy""" in the unadulterated faggotry that is The Breviary of Chaos doesn't stand on its own too fit but falls into the pits of other pseud fucking larp. Which goes to say that reading it felt like a description of divine revelation but written by the village idiot. Basically the entire thing is written in Nietzsche-but-bad aphorisms about how we're all going to die and everything is going to be horrible in the future, but it doesn't just jack off on shitass doomerism. The Breviary doesn't have any sweeping statements on the value of life but simply says that humanity has been made to love death, no matter what the individual believes, that the entire human race will bring about a mass dying through its own wants and excesses. Well obviously I wouldn't call the book stupid if it developed this in a neat way (Caraco just goes "muh overpopulation" and tries to push that utterly impotent World Economic Forum type shit on the reader because he's a pseud faggot who can't consider any reality outside of his own head), but I feel like the Breviary ties well with Wilhelm Reich or Deleuze-type shit, the idea that "the masses" want their own repression and etc. Only with Caraco added to that mix then the want for death becomes a massive fucking deal, no longer is it the specter of just one Hitler in your head but an infinite amount of Hitlers, an infinite amount of looping deaths past the great dying, a virulent lust for mass extinction that is matched only by the strange drive to life, and other faggoty phrases I just came up with, I don't know. I feel like this forum would dig it because of how le schizo and le doomer and le BASED BILLIONS MUST DIE it is. Only I'm not sure it's been translated into English in its entirety (and part of me hopes it isn't) so I'm not sure how many are actually going to be able to read it.

Here's the free link to the édition française on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/caracoca

Anyways yeah, sorry if this is word salad or some shit I'm going through my tiktok little dark age cryptocurrency fart enema compilation #36 right now please remember to like and subscribe

 

[oldboy]

I've been on somewhat of a Yukio Mishima run. My first book of his was Frolic of the Beasts and I just recently finished Life for Sale. Looking forward to reading the Temple of the Golden Pavilion next.
Other than that, I bought this book about consciousness I am super interested in but haven't had the chance of reading yet. It's called the Hidden Spring by Mark Holms!

 

[WKYK]

Okay its taken a while but I'm finally starting to enjoy Neuromancer, I'm at page ~230 and it's starting to really pick up. Same kinda thing happened with The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, I guess I've just been reading back-heavy books recently.

I just recently finished Life for Sale.

I remember really liking that book by him, really cool premise. What did you think of it?

 

[oldboy]

Okay its taken a while but I'm finally starting to enjoy Neuromancer, I'm at page ~230 and it's starting to really pick up. Same kinda thing happened with The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, I guess I've just been reading back-heavy books recently.

I remember really liking that book by him, really cool premise. What did you think of it?

The premise made me super interested too, and I was really invested into all the "episodes" the protagonist has with different kinds of people!

Spoiler

Towards the end it got a bit chaotic though, and I still don't know what to think about the anticlimactic ending. I usually like it when the author lets you imagine your own ending to it but I've also heard that Mishima didn't feel like properly finishing the book as it originally was released as a story within a Playboy magazine or something along those lines. But definitely a very fun read!

 

[A L I X]

I'm on an Italian author run currently. Right now I'm reading Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, and after that I'm reading Bocaccio's  Decameron.

 

[I-330]

I just finished reading 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus while I was chilling out in the mountains. It was a pretty quick and easy read, and it was really easy to pick up. I had heard good things about the book, but honestly it had been sitting on my bookshelf for almost a year before I decided reading it. The first half of the book was a little bit slow, not really knowing where the plot was going, but by the beginning of the second half the story really took hold. I'm not going to spoil anything but I really enjoyed the ending. If you have a little bit of time to sit down and read, I highly recommend picking it up :‎)‎)

As for what I'm reading right now, I just started 'House of Leaves' by Mark Z. Danielewski. I'm about 1/4 of the way through the book as of writing this, and I am thoroughly enjoying it! I knew a little bit of what to expect when I picked it up, but the multiple storylines/narratives really threw me off when picking it up at first. I definitely intend to re-read the book in much greater detail once I finish it just to go through some of the smaller and stranger citations/footers that I skipped over during my initial reading. If you are a fan of esoteric or liminal horror I can already say that I recommend this book! That said if you intend on reading it, make sure to pick up a physical copy as the formatting doesn't even come close to translating to epub/pdf. I have a paperback copy myself but I wish I had grabbed a hard cover since the pages are very thin and prone to damage if you bring your books everywhere like I do.

 

[whatisheroin]

started reading it this morning, currently at page 111/912. it grabbed me from page one. i've already read norwegian wood and kafka on the shore and really loved both (especially kafka) and i think this one might be on par with these. Murakami is definitely my favorite author for light reading, and i'm looking forward to reading more stuff from him

 

[WKYK]

Finally finished Neuromancer, holy that took forever (I think I started the book in January :/ ). I can say I did end up enjoying it but man those first ~200 pages felt kinda tough to get through. I'm glad its done though, its one of those books I've wanted to have under my belt but I'm ready to move on. I think I'm gonna read Norm Macdonalds memoir next, seems like an easy and really interesting read.

I just finished reading 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus while I was chilling out in the mountains. It was a pretty quick and easy read, and it was really easy to pick up. I had heard good things about the book, but honestly it had been sitting on my bookshelf for almost a year before I decided reading it. The first half of the book was a little bit slow, not really knowing where the plot was going, but by the beginning of the second half the story really took hold. I'm not going to spoil anything but I really enjoyed the ending. If you have a little bit of time to sit down and read, I highly recommend picking it up :‎)‎)

One of my favs, glad you liked it!

 

[microbyte]

I just finished reading 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus [...], I highly recommend picking it up :‎)‎)

"A Happy Death" also by Camus is similar to "The Stranger", and I actually preferred it over The Stranger. It's sort of like "The Stranger", but he gets away with it, and is convicted by his own guilt.

Finally finished Neuromancer, holy that took forever (I think I started the book in January :/ ). I can say I did end up enjoying it but man those first ~200 pages felt kinda tough to get through.

Have you tried the sequels? They pick up a little faster. The sequel (Count Zero) isn't really related to Neuromancer, but the next book (Mona Lisa Overdrive) is a good fusion of the two that's really good.
I'm currently reading 'Strange Rites', about new world religions, and I recently read 'Band of Brothers', 'Submarine Commander', 'The Secret history of the world', 'North and South', and 'Boyd'. They're all really good books, with 'The Secret History of the World' being one of the most eye opening books, and it has made me really wanna look deeper into esoteric thought, which I used to just cast aside as crazy talk (quick preview of the book, the days of the week are both the history and forecast for the word, Saturn-Day, Sun-Day, Moon-Day).

 

[Aevisia]

A Promise Of Fire by Amanda Bouchet. It's truly awful lol I was going to not finish it but I am on the last 50 pages or so that I'll be more annoyed with myself if I don't just suck it up and finish it for the sake of completion. xD It's my first 1 star read of the year. Do not recommend.