"The Screwtape Letters," CS Lewis's epistolary novel about demons trying to win souls (which they intend to eat). Heck is depicted as a sprawling and backstabby bureaucracy, and the "voice" of Screwtape is eminently entertaining. Since the book is short and rereadable, I can come back to it every few years and find something new. For example, this time I discovered Lewis btfo'd dramatard !christians before we even existed.

[The demons' quarry] can be made to take positive pleasure in the perception that the two sides of his life are inconsistent. This is done by exploiting his vanity. He can be taught to enjoy kneeling beside the grocer on Sunday just because he remembers that the grocer could not possibly understand the urbane and mocking world which he inhabited on Saturday evening; and contrariwise, to enjoy the bawdy and blasphemy over the coffee with these admirable friends all the more because he is aware of a "deeper" "spiritual" world within him which they cannot understand. You see the idea--the worldly friends touch him on one side and the grocer on the other, and he is the complete, balanced complex man who sees round them all. Thus, while being permanently treacherous to two sets of people, he will feel, instead of shame, a continual undercurrent of self-satisfaction.

Gamefaqs guides from 2006

Return of the King still. It's getting so I can't put it down, the tension is palpable now that Minas Tirith is under siege.

I'm reading A Mad Catastrophe recommended to me by a dramatard (whose name I didn't look up yet cause it's early). It's about Austria-Hungary during the lead up, and into WWI. It is really good. I know a lot about WWI but I didn't know how much of a shit show they were. Everything was bad, from troops, to weapons, to high command.

I didn't realize it when I started but I read Wawros book on the Franco Prussian War and really enjoyed it. He has a great writing style and I'll probably keep an eye out for more of his stuff.

After finishing Never Let Me Go for the book club, I decided to delve further into Ishiguro's works.

I started with his debut novel, A Pale View of Hills, which was a fine little book. If you're familiar with British post modernist works of the time, you'll feel familiar with this one as well, despite its Japanese aesthetic. In fact, I found the few bits dealing with the modernization of Nagasaki and American influences on the culture to be far more interesting than the parts to do with memory. One interesting thing I found, as someone who can read a fair bit of Japanese and has read many Japanese works translated to English, was the dialogue. He clearly wrote it all in Japanese, or at least an approximation of Japanese, and then translated it to English. Naturally, it reads a bit stilted, which is a funny clash with the excellently written and very English prose.

I also read The Buried Giant. I think I would need to reread this one before writing about it, but it was by far my favourite. So, I was surprised to see when I finished it and went to look for reviews that it's probably his most divisive work. But I was relieved to see that that likely came from poor marketing. It's stocked under the fantasy genre, but is as Ishiguro as any other Ishiguro book. Not surprising, but many of the negative reviews I saw seemed to come from younger readers who were expecting something more traditional. I saw a couple try to compare him to Brandon Sanderson. That was vindicating.

I plan to read Klara and the Sun next, and then I think I'll take a break from ol' Kazuo for a while. Most people describe him as being obsessed with memory, and certainly that's true, but I think a bit more than that his primary theme is self conciousness. Not a single exchange of dialogue goes well. Everything is awkward, and all of his characters are in a constant state of self reflection. I wonder if it's perhaps the result of his part Japanese, part British upbringing that made him into the most neurotic writer of all time. Which is funny, because he comes across as a cool dude in interviews. Either way, he writes some good books.

Merry Christmas! Reading The City and The City by China Miéville. It's a kino murder mystery that involves 2 neighbouring cities forbidden from acknowledging or interacting with the other.

Waiting for tomorrow so I can finish Journey to the West. Multiple volumes makes that book end up being 120 dollars which is too much so I asked for the last two volumes for Christmas

Guns of Avalon by Roger Zelazny.

I tried reading The Mercenary by Jerry Pournelle but it was quite boring. Shame, because it's a prequel to The Mote in God's Eye and I really liked that.

I listen to Questlove's Creative Quest when I'm driving. Originally I tried his other book Music is History but it was kinda lame, just a rappers brief summary of history he gleaned from Wikipedia combined with stories about some good butt music, the history part ruined it.

Mostly just wanted stories from hiphop which he talks about a lot more in Creative Quest

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36260417

Currently reading posts on rdrama dot net

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell), which was nice and engaging. You'll be able to tell if it's your thing a few pages in. The audiobook's very good too.

I'll be reading A Christmas Carol today

im reading this post

just started some gay little web novel called Mother of Learning, its ok so far

The Magic Toyshop

And Otherness - Brin

I'm about to start a book called Arousal about where kinks come from. Btw feel free to tell me I'm a good girl okay.

My university history stuff I don't have enough ritalin to get me through this bros help

"journey to the End of the Night" by Celine. Your average pessimistic WW1-era society sucks book (but that's how I like them)

This thread

I read Whaleshit by Melville and people said his short stories were good, so I decided to read Bartleby, the Scrivener. Bartleby is a certified dramalad. Any time his boss asks him to do anything besides copying, he says "I would prefer not to." Then he stops working but won't leave the office. It's 1800s autism stewed to a perfection. Now I'm reading Into Thin Air about dumb mayos dying on Everest. It's such a big mountain y'all

Speaking of mayos getting butt fricked by nature, everyone should read this guy's account of having to parachute through a thunderstorm: https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=http://www.loa.org/images/pdf/Rankin_Man_Thunder.pdf

It is FRICKING INSANE. It's 17 pages and you can read it in about 12 minutes. His descent would have taken 10 minutes in normal conditions but took over 40.

My moms journal

I finished Glamorama. Really enjoyed it and definitely need to hear other people's theories about what actually happens in that book

i just finished Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. i liked it i've been feeling bad about only reading fun books for a while so next i'm going to read something non-fiction. i read A Language Older Than Words by Derrick Jensen a few years ago and found it compelling, and i recently saw a copy of his Endgame Vol 1 at a Half Price Books near me, so i might swing by there today and see if it's still there.

I gave lilmarsey something like 10 books for Christmas and she has givene a similar amount. I am gonna have a fun couple of days

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.

Very good book, makes you see all your relationships with other people in a new light.

I got "The Classic: F/A-18A/B Hornet Aircraft in Australian Service" by John Quaife for Christmas so I'm probably gonna be absolutely consuming that through the coming week or two. Cool stories about the RAAF's legacy hornets AND some bomb-butt reference photos for if I ever make another hornet

Finally getting around to “With the Old Breed”. About halfway through but the show seems to follow it pretty closely