BF3s Book Club

2015-09-02 12:38:46

#2401

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +643|3979

Jay wrote:
uziq wrote:
opposite approach here. especially with a reasonably sized novel. I'll give every book its full length and due. I figure it was planned and structured that way for a reason, or in the very worst case scenario at least excised by an editor as such. some artworks take patience. can you imagine how shit some classic films would seem if you turned them off after the first 15 minutes?

but I agree, there's not enough time in this world for bad books etc. Theres not even enough time for the utmost best ones, even. but you internalise and take something away from all art, even the terrible stuff that underscores by negative example rather than highlights through superb display.
Please find the redeeming quality here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kim-Kardashian- … kardashian

My sister met Kim K and had two of those books signed. She sold one on eBay for $100.

Redeeming quality: it can be exchanged for $100.

2015-09-02 12:40:10

#2402

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5617|London, England

SuperJail Warden wrote:
Jay wrote:
uziq wrote:
opposite approach here. especially with a reasonably sized novel. I'll give every book its full length and due. I figure it was planned and structured that way for a reason, or in the very worst case scenario at least excised by an editor as such. some artworks take patience. can you imagine how shit some classic films would seem if you turned them off after the first 15 minutes?

but I agree, there's not enough time in this world for bad books etc. Theres not even enough time for the utmost best ones, even. but you internalise and take something away from all art, even the terrible stuff that underscores by negative example rather than highlights through superb display.
Please find the redeeming quality here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kim-Kardashian- … kardashian
My sister met Kim K and had two of those books signed. She sold one on eBay for $100.

Redeeming quality: it can be exchanged for $100.

Should've stomped your sister rather than kittehs

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2015-09-02 12:41:40

#2403

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +643|3979

Nah. I couldn't care less about Kim Kardashian. Frankly, I am more bothered and annoyed by the people who complain about people liking them.

2015-09-02 13:02:53

#2404

uziq: Member; +497|3711

Jay wrote:
uziq wrote:
opposite approach here. especially with a reasonably sized novel. I'll give every book its full length and due. I figure it was planned and structured that way for a reason, or in the very worst case scenario at least excised by an editor as such. some artworks take patience. can you imagine how shit some classic films would seem if you turned them off after the first 15 minutes?

but I agree, there's not enough time in this world for bad books etc. Theres not even enough time for the utmost best ones, even. but you internalise and take something away from all art, even the terrible stuff that underscores by negative example rather than highlights through superb display.
Please find the redeeming quality here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kim-Kardashian- … kardashian

obviously I have an extremely discerning taste in the first place. but there's plenty among the classics and canon that i wouldn't enjoy and could pick a bone or two of contention with. it's not like I'm a complete trash-can without a filter, reading whatever falls in my hands. I don't even watch any television because it's such a colossal waste of time. the chance of a kardashian book dropping into my lap is nil.

Last edited by uziq (2015-09-02 13:03:27)

2015-09-02 13:21:48

#2405

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +643|3979

What if it was an autobiographical novel written after she took a few undergraduate classes on creative writing at NYU and got a B+ in a class taught by Jonathan Franzen. The proceeds go to children with leukemia.

2015-09-02 13:25:09

#2406

Jay: Bork! Bork! Bork!; +2,006|5617|London, England

Yeah, but it's not. It's a book of selfies she sold instead of putting up on pinterest.

"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat

2015-09-02 13:28:04

#2407

uziq: Member; +497|3711

SuperJail Warden wrote:
What if it was an autobiographical novel written after she took a few undergraduate classes on creative writing at NYU and got a B+ in a class taught by Jonathan Franzen. The proceeds go to children with leukemia.

I hate MFA workshop fiction even without the imprimatur of callipygian porn stars.

Last edited by uziq (2015-09-02 13:29:27)

2015-09-02 13:38:08

#2408

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +643|3979

RE: Franzen

I was considering reading Freedom and heard a lot of people gush about it. Time magazine named it a "great American novel". I read a really great spoiler review of it in the Huffington post of all places. It is a long read but was written by a Stanford university literature professor and critical.

"Why Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" Is the Most Overrated Recent Novel"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shiv … 19103.html

2015-09-02 14:00:35

#2409

uziq: Member; +497|3711

SuperJail Warden wrote:
RE: Franzen

I was considering reading Freedom and heard a lot of people gush about it. Time magazine named it a "great American novel". I read a really great spoiler review of it in the Huffington post of all places. It is a long read but was written by a Stanford university literature professor and critical.

"Why Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" Is the Most Overrated Recent Novel"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shiv … 19103.html

i know anis's work. we follow one another on twitter. the fact he's a stanford prof and has a negative opinion shouldn't mean that you don't read it for yourself, or carry over his judgement. the thing is with contemporary literature – like any contempo field – is that it's hard to abstract oneself from the history and circumambient culture and make a reasoned, quasi-objective judgement. this is stuff that comments on the here and now, and people have all sorts of mixed and complex feelings about our current moment – some formulated, some unspoken and intuited. so there's always a bit of contestation in academia around what is 'canon' and what isn't, as well as a healthy industry in publishing and criticism for declaring 'classics' before, well, they have time to gain the a posteriori vintage that a classic involves. i could find you 2-3 prominent academics at stanford who absolutely can't stand david foster wallace, for instance, but it seems fairly certain to me that he's already secured his place in the history of american literature; the number of academics who are pro-DFW are legion, compared to a vocal minority. there will always be socio-psychological factors at play, here, or inter-generational dynamics. an academic who came up in the 60's and 70's and was raised on french theory, or someone groomed in an MFA program at iowa or arizona in the 90's, will find franzen and DFW intolerable. different age groups have different sensibilities like that. it's really so hard to get a proper grip on what is really, truly great, as and when it arrives. history gives distance and a perspective of a certain vantage.

2015-09-02 14:08:56

#2410

uziq: Member; +497|3711

great discussion of sci-fi which somehow seems relevant and dovetails with our discussion of genre fiction -> 'Literature'.

wonder which single textbook jameson gets his ideas from

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n17/fredric-ja … hyperspace

Last edited by uziq (2015-09-02 14:09:14)

2015-09-03 08:05:05

#2411

Ultrafunkula: Hector: Ding, ding, ding, ding...; +1,975|6733|6 6 4 oh, I forget

Finished The Strain book 1 this week. Quite good horror. Written kinda like in Dan Brown style. Constantly happening something and you can't put the book away because of it. Entertaining stuff.

2015-10-14 13:00:31

#2412

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +643|3979

An article about a 36 part Pulitzer prize nominated story almost completely disappearing from the web and memory. Goes on about how people are trying to archive internet pages and stories.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a … eb/409210/

Reminds me of when I did my senior thesis for my history ba. It was about the the memoir of a grunt who served in the Fredericksburg campaign in the civil war. The book I used was a scan of a reprinted copy made in the 1930's. The guy was so obscure that he didn't have a wiki article and the only biographical information was a page from the reprint about him and a reference to another book he made which is probably lost forever.

It was cool that the only two people who ever knew of him on campus was my 85+ year old professor and I. There is another professor who wrote for the New York Times who may have known him also or at least came in contact with him. Cool beans, right?

Anyone have a similar story?

2015-10-26 02:15:31

#2413

Dilbert_X: The X stands for; +1,815|6365|eXtreme to the maX

I have decided to stop watching TV documentaries and read books instead - the one or two sentences of useful information which come out of the typical 1 hour documentary are not worth the time spent.

Is this what it means to go full hipster?

Fuck Israel

2015-10-26 06:49:04

#2414

uziq: Member; +497|3711

I think we can all agree you need to grow up. your attitudes to anything outside of your own provenance are basically that of an insecure 15 year old.

do you really need to dissemble and adopt a facetious tone to ask for a simple book recommendation? how old are you

Last edited by uziq (2015-10-26 06:51:32)

2015-10-26 06:57:05

#2415

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +643|3979

PBS documentaries are always good. They are funded by generous donations by viewers like me.

2015-10-26 07:37:58

#2416

DesertFox-: The very model of a modern major general; +796|6944|United States of America

Watch a 12-hour Ken Burns documentary if you want more depth. I'm currently making my way through The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

2015-10-26 07:41:17

#2417

SuperJail Warden: Gone Forever; +643|3979

DesertFox- wrote:
Watch a 12-hour Ken Burns documentary if you want more depth. I'm currently making my way through The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

I rather watch paint dry than 12 hours about parks.

2015-10-26 14:24:20

#2418

uziq: Member; +497|3711

read a fucking book. tv is not as good a medium for disseminating information that you will learn and retain. that's why america as a nation isn't a bunch of obese super geniuses. tv is candy-floss.

2015-10-26 17:50:22