To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.

!bookworms

Thoughts on having a rdrama weekly book club?

We could have a nomination thread to propose the books, then a voting thread with the most upvoted proposals from the previous thread to decide it. Just an idea, I’m not a janny so I don’t know how to create voting threads, maybe the /h/lit mods can do it.

Anyways, if this happens I nominate The Iliad. I read it last year, but is one of those books I would read again, no problem, and is so dramatic and probably very fun to discuss

One I haven’t read yet, but would like to nominate is Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, is short and looks interesting (literal bugman lmao).

!writecel is the hip new ping group for the next beat generation, the sneed generation, apply and ping for any creative writing posts or requests on this web zone. Maybe a weekly writing prompt will be in our future.

To discuss the first 6 chapters of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. I'm on chapter 5 right now so I'll try that one and chapter 6 this afternoon and post my thoughts then.

!bookworms What do you think of the book so far?

King came out with his new book Holly a few days ago and I just finished it. What it's about isn't important; what struck me while reading it is how badly being a lib on Twitter has infected King's brain. The following are just some of the Trump mentions in the book:

“That sounds right,” Holly says.

“And bonus! Trump's gone.”

Leaving behind a country at war with itself , Holly thinks. And who's to say he won't reappear in 2024? She thinks of Arnie's promise from The Terminator: “I'll be back.”

It was Charlotte who died.

An avid Trump supporter—a fact she trumpeted to her daughter at every opportunity—she refused to get the vaccinations or even to wear a mask. (Except, that was, at Kroger and her local bank branch, where they were required. The one Charlotte kept for those occasions was a bright red, with MAGA stamped on it.)

On July 4th, Charlotte attended an anti-mask rally in the state capital, waving a sign reading MY BODY MY CHOICE (a sentiment that did not keep her from being adamantly anti-abortion). On July 7th, she lost her sense of smell and gained a cough. On the 10th, she was admitted to Mercy Hospital, nine short blocks from Rolling Hills Elder Care, where her brother was doing fine… physically, at least. On the 15th, she was placed on a ventilator.

“Divorced. Herbert and I dissolved our partnership three years ago. Political differences were part of it—he was all in on Trump—but there wereplenty of other reasons, as well.”

“How did Bonnie feel about that?”

“Handled it in very adult fashion. And why not? She was an adult. Twenty-one. Besides, the first time Herbie came home wearing a MAGA hat, she actually laughed at him. He was… mmm… displeased.”

Here is another relationship chilled by the fast-talking man in the red tie. It's not fate and not coincidence.

The jagged laugh comes again—nerves rather than amusement. “He's in Alaska. Left for a white-collar job in a shipping plant about six months after the divorce. And he has Covid. His idol refused to wear a mask, so Herb refused to wear one. You know, Trumper see, Trumper do.

“I don't know exactly. I've been working at that Jet Mart a long time. Seen em come and seen em go. But Trump was running for president, I remember that because we joked about it. Seems like the joke was on us.” He pauses, perhaps thinking over what he just said. “But if you voted for him, I'm only kidding.”

Like fun you were, Holly thinks. “I voted for Clinton. You called him the bowling guy?”

There is also a hilarious bit where King let's you know a character is evil because they find the Jan 6th insurrection inspiring, and another character is good because they cried during it:

Bonnie needs to see her as the stereotypical elderly academic: head in the clouds, losing a few miles an hour off her mental fastball, and largely helpless outside her own field of expertise. And harmless, of course. Would never dream of insurrectionists hanging elected representatives of the United States government from lampposts. Especially the blacks (a word which in her mind she will never capitalize) and the fannyfrickers. Of which there are more every day.

She's cried so much lately. Tears of relief after Biden won the election. Tears of horror and belated reaction after Chet Ondowsky, a monster pretending to be human, went down the elevator shaft. She cried during and after the Capitol riot—those were tears of rage.

Awful pervet injects his weird basic b-word politics into his filth.

!bookworms it turns out Meloni is a huge Tolkien fan, so naturally The Economist journos decided to write about it.

https://txtify.it/https://econ.trib.al/k4Sh5eC

Here's the article text.

Youtubercels discuss

https://old.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/17msxjy/how_did_the_lord_of_the_rings_become_a_secret/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/17s3esk/why_does_a_lord_of_the_rings_exhibit_matter_to/?sort=controversial

!neolibs

Should I just go chronologically, for instance: Aristotle -> Descartes-> Kant -> Schopenhauer or something like that, or go some other way like reading secondary authors' summaries of works and views of said philosophers first?

I'm not interested in any single philosophical movement or ideology, but in terms of topics I'd like to read on epistemology and metaphysics.

The Mahabharata Saga came in today. For a $78 price tag it is huge holy shit.

10 volumes, almost 400 pages each, the last two volumes reaching 800 pages each

Also, fits in snugly into my little book rack

!bookworms !classics

!poll_voters

Ideally maybe like a sci fi or fantasy novel with thrilling adventure, vivid action and clever politics (not game of thrones or anything drowning in cynicism please) but I'm open to any kind of recommendation, like a good literature novel or something nonfiction about history maybe if you can convince me that it's a good read.

It's either this or leveling in Fortnite to earn the Peter Griffin skin, help me engage in an adult pastime for once, rDrama.

!bookworms

Edit:

Here's the list so far based on your recommendations

Stranger in a strange land

Notes from Underground

Shadow & Claw: the first half of The Book of the New Sun

Musicophilia

The Metaphysical Club

The three body problem

Les Miserable

Back in high school most of the book discussions were exclusively about explaining it to students who couldn't understand the material (included (parts of) The Oddesy, Anthem by Ayn Rand, The Cask of Amontillado and Telltale Heart, A Streetcar Named Desire, To Kill a Mockingbird, some satire of Victorian social standards that I can't remember the name of, and probably more I can't remember)

We also had to read A Separate Peace during the Summer and when classes started we had a week to discuss it and turn in a report on it.

I hated it, everyone else probably hated it, and the only thing discussed was how the two main characters were totes gay for each other (actually true). Then the next year we read The Great Gatsby, and discussion over it was relegated to talking about how the two main characters were totes gay for each other (also true)

To Kill a Mockingbird was pulled from the curriculum the year after my class read it b/c a student complained about the N word

So what were your school lit discussions like? Surface-level repetition of plot points or high-brow elucidating dialogues?

Hello litbros I was going to post my zero effort recommendation thread on /his/ but that is a terrible board, holy moly

I am going on a long drive soon and want to listen to some books about history, lately have been interested in bronze age and early Christianity but I don't really care I just want to listen to stuff

Here's a pdf of the Devils Dictionary in return

And it was worth the price of admission. This is a book written by a man who does not give a shit. It's pure penny dreadful nonsense written by someone who would much rather be writing westerns. The plot is that there's an evil entity in service to the death who's getting old and dying because apparently Satan is a fricking cheat. So to extend his lifespan he needs a member of a certain family to rewind a clock and is also ripping out people's souls and sticking them into toys made by a p-dophile who records child pornography to glorify Satan. These toys are then sent to collectors all over the world to somehow spread evil. Are they bringing other toys to life? Are they encouraging children to do evil? Who the frick knows. The twists are about as logical and foreshadowed as your average soap opera plot. Every women the hero sleeps with tries to kill him. The devil makes him frick a younger woman for no reason. The people who get their souls ripped out turn into fake people. Some of the toys don't like working for the devil's loser son and his fat p-dophile sidekick and so they rebel and the fat p-dophile dumps them in a creepy house in the woods. There's a secret evil compound hospital where dissenters get eaten by the old one and die horribly. The book is so unapologetically stupid, and ends with the hero's evil daughter plotting to seduce him when she gets older. Daddy's got a thick rod for you, but it ain't his peepee. It's his his harlot hitting club to beat the slut of sinful little satanists. You're going to church kid. The best comparison is if I tried to write a horror novel in the style of my fanfic. The book is insane. This post is more coherent.

To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.

!bookworms

I haven't read a page this week