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Dubliners, a must-read for anyone Irish. Hell even if you're not, Joyce is able to convey such strong emotion through his prose that each short story will likely still impact you, even if you miss out on some of the geographical and cultural notes.

And it probably has some of my favourite passages in all of literature.


It was after nine o'clock when he left the shop. The night was cold and gloomy. He entered the Park by the first gate and walked along under the gaunt trees. He walked through the bleak alleys where they had walked four years before. She seemed to be near him in the darkness. At moments he seemed to feel her voice touch his ear, her hand touch his. He stood still to listen. Why had he withheld life from her? Why had he sentenced her to death? He felt his moral nature falling to pieces.

When he gained the crest of the Magazine Hill he halted and looked along the river towards Dublin, the lights of which burned redly and hospitably in the cold night. He looked down the slope and, at the base, in the shadow of the wall of the Park, he saw some human figures lying. Those venal and furtive loves filled him with despair. He gnawed the rectitude of his life; he felt that he had been outcast from life's feast. One human being had seemed to love him and he had denied her life and happiness: he had sentenced her to ignominy, a death of shame. He knew that the prostrate creatures down by the wall were watching him and wished him gone. No one wanted him; he was outcast from life's feast. He turned his eyes to the grey gleaming river, winding along towards Dublin. Beyond the river he saw a goods train winding out of Kingsbridge Station, like a worm with a fiery head winding through the darkness, obstinately and laboriously. It passed slowly out of sight; but still he heard in his ears the laborious drone of the engine reiterating the syllables of her name.

He turned back the way he had come, the rhythm of the engine pounding in his ears. He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him. He halted under a tree and allowed the rhythm to die away. He could not feel her near him in the darkness nor her voice touch his ear. He waited for some minutes listening. He could hear nothing: the night was perfectly silent. He listened again: perfectly silent. He felt that he was alone.
 
Mademoiselle de La Ferté, by Pierre Benoît. Almost a century old but the feelings in there are so raw and real.
 
The Age of Reinvention, Karine Tuil. A French book - translated- I finished over one day. Couldn't put it down.
 
The Disaster Artist, to commemorate the upcoming James Franco movie.

It's a deeply fascinating look into the production of one of the most bizarre movies ever made, with Greg Sistero giving his insider account on the Room. Alternates wildly between being hilarious, heartwarming, terrifying and tragic. Greg's closing thoughts are a thing of beauty.

The Room’s premiere was testament to Tommy’s unrelenting drive and determination. He’d inflict his vision on the world whether the world wanted it or not. He was a movie star whether the world saw it or not. In getting here, Tommy had sometimes been destructive and sometimes cruel. But how could I—how could anyone—not be moved by Tommy, who’d fought so hard against the unforgiving confines of his star-crossed life? The Room, I already knew, was a lot of things. A bad film, a funny film, a bizarre film, a glorious film, a vain film, an absurd film, an incompetent film, a powerful film, a fascinating film, a disastrous film, an independent film, an inexplicable film, and finally, a brave film. Sitting there in the theater, I let myself feel proud of Tommy, who believed his movie was a first-rate emotional drama that contained all his most profound ideas about life. In that regard, The Room was Tommy, and is Tommy—a man who remains the grandest and most sincere dreamer I’ve ever known. This is, ultimately, what redeems his immensely conflicted and complicated darkness. In the end, Tommy made me realize that you decide who you become. He also made me realize what a mixed blessing that can be. Although I knew Tommy’s film wasn’t going to be received the way he wanted it to be that night, I hoped he’d be able to recognize how incredible this experience really was. When I looked over at him, I couldn’t help but see a vision of the young boy who peered through a movie theater’s cracked door in Eastern Europe, newly in awe of life’s possibilities. Tommy removed his sunglasses and glanced back at me. He had tears in his eyes. He smiled, nodded, and turned toward the screen. It wasn’t often that you got to see a man whose dream was literally about to come true, but then the lights went down, and I couldn’t see him anymore.
 
I remember Dubliners from school! some fantastic extracts, though I didn't "love it".
I am Legend is so much better as a book! and so much darker...
 
RedRose said:
I remember Dubliners from school! some fantastic extracts, though I didn't "love it".
Click to expand...

It's probably my favourite Joyce work. Ulysses has it's moments but it's definitely not as easy to read.

And Finnegan's Wake is just nuts.
 
I have quite an eclectic taste in lit but for some reason, I could never really get into Joyce.
 
Girls, by Nic Kelman. And no, I can't tell you if I like it. Kuddos for the brutal honesty, I guess, but it gets over the top and at times frankly nasty. I'm not politically correct or easily offended but do NOT recommend it to anyone sensitive. Fair warning about older men with much younger girls.
 
Superpowered year 3..literally an academy of college kids that train and learn to become certified heroes. Awesome read and currently free with Kindle Unlimited
 
Moon Knight: From the Dead.

Still one of the best books that Marvel have produced in about two decades. Which might not seem a high bar, given some of the shit they've published, but it's really fucking good.
 
Someone said Lilah Pace's Asking for it sounded like my thing, so I'm reading it. Too extreme for me, though not unbearably so or anything.
 
I just started the Dresden Files! I blew through the first one without much effort - I'm excited to get the next few once I can spare the change. I'm also starting on Patrick Rothfuss after a lot of people pleading with me to read it. I got the first two books as a gift last week!
 
I can't remember all that I've read since I last made a comment; but recently I finished three classic sci-fi books.

Dumarest of Terra book 3 Toyman by E.C. Tubb, and interesting look back in how crazy advance ideas could be while crazily primitive. The plot revolves around a world called Toy which is host to a super computer which can accurately predict the future if given enough information and this is seen as a solitary marvel and not a creation that multiple worlds have invested in. While at the same time it features complex genetic manipulation to turn humans into tentacle monsters as a throw away encounter or even directly record someone's experiences for future play back and full immersion by others.

Empire of the Atom by A.E. van Vogt, was a lot more fun then I expected. It has some creative world building which is delivered deftly with little exposition. The setting takes place after some nuclear war which reset the world. Atomics have become gods and radiation is their blessing and curse, Scientist are the new religion. There is space travel with a habitable Venus, Mars and moons of Jupiter and this is not presented in a John Carter of Mars they were always habitable; but that in the books past we had terraformed them. The story itself is simple and straightforward; but entertaining.

Envoy to New Worlds by Keith Laumer, is a collection of short stories about James Retief and his adventures in the future Terrestrial Diplomatic Corps. The stories pull from Laumer's own experience working within diplomatic circles and the headache they can cause. Fun and quick I can understand how he managed to write so many of them.

All three of these books are rather short in length and honestly I have to say that's a strength, the works are punchier and I'm left in amazement at how rich the settings came come off with little divergence from what are character driven stories. They are a good source of inspiration for anyone that likes a pulpier sci-fi.
 
American Psycho.

A case where I'd say the movie is better than the book, as the latter delves just a little too far into uncomfortable ultraviolence. While it's definitely intentionally trying to be absurd at times, it usually can get a touch too unpleasant.

Still, I'd be lying if I said I didn't love the ending.

"This is not an exit."
 
Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and Its Consequences by James Buchan. Fascinating but also sad. There is a constant sense of impending doom that mounts with every chapter. Mohammad Reza is always a tragic, flawed figure whose sins elicit revulsion but who is also so human that I have always found it impossible to not feel a deep empathy for him.
 
I'm currently reading Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld.

I usually love reading Westerfeld's books, except this one. I'm halfway through the book and I'm struggling to finish it. The chapters are split up between two different characters, Darcy and Lizzie. Darcy is an 18 year old who decides do go to NY instead of college to pursue her dream of becoming an author and Lizzie is the protagonist of Darcy's Afterworlds book that she's writing. Darcy's story is really boring to me and Lizzie's story has a lot of plot holes that irritate me. Like, in Afterworlds Lizzie is able to phase herself into the afterworld, the place where you go when you die. While she is in there she is invisible to the real world, unless she starts to panic or her heart rate increases, then she's forced back into the real world. Now, I thought that when she goes into the afterworld she leaves her body behind, but at one point of the story when she phased back into the real world she was standing exactly where her spirit was, not where she had phased and left her body. But then later on after that she's told that if she panics and phases back into the real world, she will be back at home where she left her body. Stuff like that. I'm going to try and finish the rest of the book to see what happens, I might end up liking it by the end.
 
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