Metal Reviews

It's not only that I completely disagree with objectivism and her defense of complete selfishness; I've read books whose ideas I disagree with but that I still like. It's that combined with the fact that she's an awful writer and repeatedly shoves her viewpoint down your throat over and over, and explores her themes through didactic speech making and straw man opposition. I just think that if you're not willing to actually explore a theme through plot and characters and instead go the completely didactic route, you're not being a good writer.

Read The Fountainhead. It's at least better written. Atlas Shrugged has a few twenty page monologues which she copy and pasted in. The fact that she rips Nietzsche off while claiming to be groundbreaking is what pisses me off. Mocking communism is at least understandable since she grew up in the USSR and the fact that Stalin sucks.

So I'm buying that Zizek book tomorrow. Hopefully I can get to it after One-Dimensional Man, which I recommend to you, Rio.

Has anybody read American Gods by Neil Gaiman? Any good?

Yep, and yep, although I guessed a twist. Have Anansi Boys waiting for me, looking forward to that!

Almost done with Life of Pi. Pretty damn good.

Also finished The Shadow of the Torturer. Soooooooooo good. However, due to the beginning of school again and thus non-stop reading I doubt I'll be able to finish the Claw part for a long while yet.

Isn't Life of Pi all about how God is always around to take care of us?

About the Zizek book, just noticed it is published by Verso, who publish a lot of radical literature. Deleuze, Fukuyama and Negri are mentioned in the contents which intimidates me yet Foucault is mentioned which excites me. His analysis of film is something new for me.

No.


...it's actually a really good book...unfortunately most people would just be like "bla bla God bullshit"

yeah i think the religious stuff in the first half of The Life of Pi scared some people off. i'm interested in that kind of thing so i loved it though, and once he's on the raft with the tiger it gets sooo good.

R. Scott Bakker- The Judging Eye (The Aspect Emperor Book 1... Came 2 weeks early in the mail, woo!)

And a whole bunch of crap for school.

Richard Weaver - Ideas Have Consequences
Trenton Merricks - Objects and Persons

Reading both of these for school.

I read The Road. Amazing.

William Shatner - Up Till Now

Not bad, funny in places.

Still reading the new Bakker book (very good by the way, and I'm sure I've reccomended his first trilogy, The Prince of Nothing), but picked up a bunch of books I'm excited to read:

Gene Wolfe- Soldier of Sidon
Gene Wolfe- The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Jeff Vandermeer: Shriek: An Afterword
Dan Simmons: The Terror
Vladmir Nabokov: Pale Fire

I'm also wondering, have any of you ever read any Borges? If so, which of his books do you reccomend I read first?

I think he wrote mostly short stories. These are the two collections which I was recommended by a professor.

http://www.amazon.com/Borges-Collected- ... 140&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Labyrinths-Select ... 202&sr=1-2

Have you ever read Lolita by Nabokov? If not, I highly, highly recommend it. A mind fuck in text format.

Thanks for the links... I'll pick one of those up soon.

Unfortunately, I haven't read Lolita, but I've heard a lot about it. I'm definitely going to have to pick that one up soon.

Text books, text books, and more text books..........

Just finished Watchmen a few weeks ago....
In 2 words.....Wow Wow!

Jeff Vandermeer- Shriek: An Afteword

just finished Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. he escaped from prison in Australia and lived in India for several years, the book is loosely based on the time he spent there plus some other stuff.

it's a nice book, but considering the main character's experiences (escaping from prison, living in a slum, joining a Bombay gang, fighting in Afghanistan) one would expect a fast-paced, gritty read, which does happen for a part of the book, but sadly it's bogged down with pages upon pages of ridiculous and unnecessary philosophical discussions, attempts to justify his actions and half-assed attempts to come off as deep or lyrical, with cringe-worthy passages like "eyes the colour of a desert before a storm", "the lies we tell ourselves are the devils that pray at the empty house of midnight" and "our lips met like waves that crest and merge the whirl of storming seas". it's completely full of these, it borders on the unreadable at times, you just feel like throwing the book away.

it would benefit greatly from some trimming, if he cut out all the bullshit this would make a great 400-500 page book. as it is it's far too long, worth reading if it's a gift or something but i'd be pissed if i paid for it. don't plan on reading any of the planned sequels either.

btw, it's getting made into a movie starring Johnny Depp and Amitabh Bachchan (probably the biggest actor in India).

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i borrowed Wild Swans by Jung Chang at a friend's recommendation, starting it today or tomorrow.

Just finished Cell by Stephen King, awesome stuff.