[Omid-]

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For school. It's ok I guess, but they could've given me something more interesting to read. I hope the second book I have to read for English this year is better.

[Stalagmite]

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[Stalagmite]

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[Hellbilly]

I'm on the Black Bible. Not LaVey's little story book, but that older story book. To be Moses' Sixth and Seventh Books, they are quite astounding, seeing as how they contain latin names and passages...

[Stalagmite]

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This one's a bitch, but it's still considered required reading in military study. Not so much for the content (though some is certainly valid for even todays standards) but for the lessons learned from applying Clausewitzian principles in WW1 and the extreme casualties that resulted. The author died before he could complete the works, so his wife edited all his notes.

[Omid-]

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This is a great book by Kader Abdolah; I recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the Islamic culture and the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Oh and The Collector gradually got really interesting as it progressed, I'm glad I read it.

[.Arthoc]

....

[Hellbilly]

I'm reading Robert E. Howards' Conan stories in the anthology The Complete Chronicles Of Conan - and am most impressed once again. When it comes to describing battle, whether it be huge clashes between armies or just two combatants, Howard is among the best ever. He describes combat with such vividness, detail and power that you can picture it in your head. The somewhat superhuman anti-hero Conan is a good character, and the rough but mystic world of Conan is very appealing, being different from your run-of-the-mill fantasy world in the positive sense that it is much darker and jaded than most. Howard was by no means an author without flaws, being more of a super-talented hobbyist (like his friend Lovecraft) than a routined professional author, and as such there is a lot of repetition between many stories, and often you can predict the outcome and events of stories way ahead after you've started to recognize the patterns. 800+ pages is a bit too much in some ways, as such a volume of Conan only emphasizes the flaws. But regardless of the flaws, Conan is an oft overlooked gem of early 20th century Sword & Sorcery fantasy.

I've also been reading Finnish paperback horror anthologies from the early 90's, which compiled together both established names and promising new names mostly from the US and the UK. There was, I think, a small horror boom then, and one man in particular (Markku Sadelehto) made a mark by compiling several very good anthologies for a variety of publishers. Some were just "cheap" books with no theme, whilst others were surprisingly sophisticated anthologies exploring certain themes in their setup. Overall, horror is a most interesting genre as, I feel, both good and bad horror reflects the time it was written in very accurately without necessarily aging badly. The stories from the late 80's and early 90's are often of a very sexual nature, and transcend mere "shock antics"; one direction in 80's/90's horror was called meta-horror, which I gather referred to a direction where traditional horror storytelling and topics took a second seat to studying the nature of horror (litterature) itself. It paints up a fascinating picture of a time when sexuality both exhilarated, terrified and confused people. AIDS had arrived, traditional sexual boundaries were becoming blurred by homosexuality, transgenderism and the (perceived) downfall of traditional family values: this is what is echoed in many of these stories; but not always with fear and demonization... sometimes the approach is one of unprejudiced fascination, perhaps even hope.

[Nikolai81]

It paints up a fascinating picture of a time when sexuality both exhilarated, terrified and confused people. AIDS had arrived, traditional sexual boundaries were becoming blurred by homosexuality, transgenderism and the (perceived) downfall of traditional family values: this is what is echoed in many of these stories; but not always with fear and demonization... sometimes the approach is one of unprejudiced fascination, perhaps even hope.

I often like to think that AIDS is one of nature's self-defense mechanisms against biological dead-ends, and that it's one of the first of many more to come, each more severe and lethal than the other. It appeals to my sense of justice to imagine that those who commit grave crimes against nature suffer the consequences of their actions. The more that kind of depraved and decadent filth spreads, the more all natural healthy life suffers.

[KGS]

i don't think so

[Powaz]

I often like to think that AIDS is one of nature's self-defense mechanisms against biological dead-ends, and that it's one of the first of many more to come, each more severe and lethal than the other. It appeals to my sense of justice to imagine that those who commit grave crimes against nature suffer the consequences of their actions. The more that kind of depraved and decadent filth spreads, the more all natural healthy life suffers.

Oh, boy.

Anyway, I am reading a collection of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

[Hellbilly]

Anyway, I am reading a collection of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

Steer clear of his "science fiction" stuff. It hasn't aged well. To put it mildly.

[Powaz]

Could you give me any titles?

[Hellbilly]

I'll have to see if I still have that book, which means digging through like ten 2m piles of books, as they're all piled up in a corner right now...

[KGS]

i still read Kant now and then but i need a lot of energy for it so it does not happen too often, i have some 100 pages left from the transcendental analytic

i finished The Counterfeiters by André Gide which was a nice book, and now i've just started Бесы by Dostoevsky (who's title is translated as Demons in english but it sounds wrong)

[Powaz]

Reading Kant can be painful.

[Bamfy]

I just started reading Dune.

[KGS]

dune is the best sci-fic i've ever read; it is also the only one by i doubt i'll ever find such a magnificent critique on society, religion, politics and some other things worth reading about (life?) mixed with an outstanding story

i think that Frank Herbert is a literary genius

Reading Kant can be painful.

hah, you can say that again

[Dino]

So I just read the Alchemist by Paullo Coelho. One of the better books I've read throughout my existance.

Tomorrow I'm going to buy a piece from Terry Pratchet's Disk World. Let's see how it turns out, then.

[KGS]

i did like the alchemist up to some point in my life; then i suddenly noticed that my life is shit, i am whirling in pain and some guy out there had told me that if i really want something the universe will help me get it... i don't like him anymore

i started reading Schopenhauer's "chief work"